Many thanks to Leslie Babcox for compiling all of this!
A Disclaimer
I’ve looked over this several times, but I know better than to guarantee I found all errors or that all links will work when you click on them. Web pages sometimes disappear from the internet without warning—the bane of all teachers. As I suggest below, the easiest option is Internet Archive, but if you have trouble accessing the book because it is checked out, try the other websites.
The Easiest Method
All the poems are in Berry’s book This Day. The page numbers are provided in the study, and I copied the info on this page. I discovered that a copy of This Day is available for online reading at Internet Archive.You will need to sign in, but access is FREE.
- Go to the general address to sign in: https://archive.org/
- Once you sign in, click on Books and search for This Day.
- You may be able to go directly to the book first with the following link and then create an account.https://archive.org/details/thisdaysabbathpo0000berr/mode/2up
- Also, once you have an account, your username will appear on the top line. You can access the book by clicking on your username and then clicking on “history.” You can enlarge the pages and move to specific pages by moving the white dot on the gray line at the bottom of the page.
- You can borrow books for one hour or longer. However, please do not borrow this book for more than one hour at a time, so other Covenant folks can also access the book. It won’t take you long to read/contemplate each poem, so an hour should be plenty of time. Return the book when you are done. If you log on and the book is unavailable, wait awhile and check again.
Alternatively
The poems are also available on a variety of websites, and some poems are on several websites. I generally selected the first one I found. The links are below. The Englewood Review includes many of the poems, so you will need to scroll down the page to find specific poems—look for the first line. Also, I discovered that this website has limited access. There may be more of Berry’s poems on the page, but I was locked out after clicking on several poems.
After I found more than half of the poems, I found the following website that seemed to have links to all the poems. https://www.saintlukesgresham.org/lentpoetry
Some of the links no longer work, though, and some of the poems are copied from Berry’s book. The church probably shouldn’t have copied so many poems, but since they are here online, we can link to them. I found other options for most of them, though. Yay! The links that begin “drive.google” are the ones copied from the book.
Ash Wednesday
Sabbath Poem:VII, 1994, “I would not have been a poet” (This Day, p.154)
https://chriswheelerwrites.com/i-would-not-have-been-a-poet-wendell-berry/
More Light:Berry’s XIII,2008, “By its own logic, greed” (This Day, p. 328)
Scroll down: https://ritholtz.com/2012/03/greece-tragedy-poetry/
Berry’s II, 1999, “I dream of a quiet man” (This Day, p. 196).
https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2013/08/wendell-berry-i-dream-of-quiet-man.html
First Sunday of Lent
Sabbath Poem:I, 1979, “I go among trees and sit still” (This Day, p. 7).
https://www.best-poems.net/wendell-berry/sabbath-poem-i-1979.html
4th poem: https://friendsofsilence.net/quote/author/wendell-berry?page=2
https://mypastoralponderings.com/2021/03/05/i-go-among-trees-by-wendell-berry/
More Light:Berry’sI, 2004, “A young man leaving home” (This Day, p.249)
https://beyondcontradiction.org/2013/12/21/the-house-of-god-gate-of-heaven-i-did-not-know-it/
Berry’s IV, 1979, “The bell calls in the town” (This Day, p. 11).
https://onbeing.org/poetry/sabbaths-1979-iv/
#6 for audio: https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/sets/wendell-berry-reads-his-poems
Second Sunday of Lent
Sabbath Poem:VII, 1999, “Again I resume the long” (This Day, p.201)
https://www.jeffcagwin.com/2014/06/again-i-resume-long-lesson-wendell-berry.html
More Light:Berry’s XII, 2007,“Learn by little the desire for all things” (This Day, p. 312);
https://www.beingsilentlydrawn.com/2011/10/learn-by-little-desire-for-all-things.html
Berry’s XIII, 2005, “Eternity is not infinity”(This Day, p. 274)
https://notdarkyet-commentary.blogspot.com/2012/03/wendell-berry-on-eternity.html
Third Sunday of Lent
Sabbath Poem:V, 1985, “How long does it take to make the woods?” (This Day, p. 67)
https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/a-sabbath-poem-by-wendell-berry
More Light:Berry’s I, 1981, “Here where the world is being made” (This Day, p. 33);
Scroll down to 1981: https://englewoodreview.org/wendell-berry-seven-favorite-poems/
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rAwT5VU6_c2KXq8tilSyh5SOmmXjbAt0/view
Berry’s VIII, 1999, “The difference is a polished” (This Day, p. 202)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19mFT90gtlnAWvGtNXDsRdy16yieVbJkM/view
Fourth Sunday of Lent
Sabbath Poem:“Remembering that it happened once” (ThisDay, VI, 1987, p. 80)
More Light: Berry’s I, 1987, “Coming to the woods’ edge”
https://seekerschurch.org/thanksgiving-1998-gather-us-in/
Berry’s V, 1980, “Six days of work are spent”
Scroll down to 1980:https://englewoodreview.org/wendell-berry-seven-favorite-poems/
Berry’s IV, 1980, “The frog with lichened back and golden thigh” (This Day, pp. 73, 29, 28) https://katiegilley.com/2020/08/23/a-sunday-poem-with-the-frogs/
Scroll down to 1980https://englewoodreview.org/wendell-berry-seven-favorite-poems/
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Sabbath Poem:I, 1980, “What hard travail God does in death!” (This Day,p. 25)
https://mbird.com/poetry/what-hard-travail-god-does-in-death-wendell-berry/
Scroll down to https://englewoodreview.org/wendell-berry-seven-favorite-poems/
More Light:see Berry’s VI, 1985,“Life forgives its depredations,”
Scroll to page 6 https://www.earthethicsinstitute.org/facultycurriculum_pdf/Hettich_English_AmericanLiteratureAndEarthLiteracySelections.pdf
Berry’s III, 1987, “And now the lowland grove is down, the trees” (This Day, pp. 68, 77)
Scroll down:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1525558686
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V8TBiWFUZKUYVzB_BiZ7v-gAyOWFevsl/view
Palm Sunday
Sabbath Poem:I, 1986, “Slowly, slowly, they return” (This Day, p. 71)
https://999poems.blogspot.com/2015/03/748-sabbath-poem-untitled-by-wendell.html
More Light:Berry’s IV, 2012, “It’s spring. The birds sing,”
Scroll down to page 1: https://sylvanunited.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Wendell-Berry-scripture-readings.pdf
Berry’s VIII, 2011, “Off in the woods in the quiet”(This Day, pp. 379, 367).
2nd poem: https://www.terrain.org/2013/poetry/four-poems-by-wendell-berry/
https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2020/01/noticing-birds/
Maundy Thursday
Sabbath Poem: VIII, 2012, “Since, despite the stern demands” (This Day,p. 383)
https://www.peaceuccstcloud.info/the-pastor-and-the-pug/maundy-thursday-message
More Light:Berry’s III, 2012, “Though his tenure on the earth” (This Day, p. 377)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FNgi65RLlaM37joqlpaVsMPb6L-D15ZZ/view
Good Friday
Sabbath Poem:II, 1988, “It is the destruction of the world”(This Day, p. 82)
https://nostripmalls.blogspot.com/
More Light: Berry’s IV, 1993, “Hate has no world”
https://btaq.net/2014/12/13/hate-has-no-world/
Berry’s I,1989, “In early morning we awaken from” (This Day, pp. 144, 87)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27546590
Easter Sunday
I, 2009, “Early in the year by my friend’s gift” (This Day, p. 329)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/432026/pdf
III, 2009, “After windstorm and ice storm” (This Day, p. 331)
3rd poem: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/432026/summary
III, 1992, “Again we come” (This Day, p. 131)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ruAjChFE0L50bWP6jvFBm4Iansx0KJZB/view
IV, 2003, “The little stream sings” (This Day, p. 241)
A music adaptation, along with the text of the poem https://andrewmaxfield.org/blogs/musings/the-little-stream-sings
V, 2003, “The politics of illusion, of death’s money” (This Day, p. 242)
V, 1994, “Raking hay on a rough slope” (This Day, p. 152)
https://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php%3Fdate=2001%252F08%252F05.html
VII, 1982, “The clearing rests in song and shade” (This Day,p. 44)
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/PoemsAndPrayers/Wendell_Berry_Sabbath_Poem_VII.shtml
