The Weighty Season
Autumn officially arrived last week so I thought this would be a good time to share one of my favorite Wendell Berry “Sabbath Poems.” This one can be found in his book, A Small Porch.
“Again the air is full of falling: the falling of leaves in the weighty season that brings all home again to the lowly miracle from which they came. Nature, the mother and maker, requires that life take form, enflesh itself in the shapes and habits of the world’s unnumbered kinds. And then she requires each one at last to shed its guise, giving up its matter to the life to come. Think of a world of no fall, no gravity calling downward, homeward, bringing all by the light uprisen down to rest in the resting land–a world, instead, where all that dies would fly upward and outward, nameless and alone. How sterile then would be the earth, seasonless the year. The year is the showing forth of the heavenly love that is the being of the present world. The leaves, opening and at last falling, hold a while the beauty of God who made them by the work and care of Nature, His vicar and our mother. His only is the light of which all things are made, the beauty that they are, the delight that is our prayer.”
There are many things I like about this poem about the “weighty season” we call fall. I appreciate the way Berry alludes to the cycle of the seasons and the cycle of life itself. There is indeed a rhythm to life that comes from the hand of the Creator. Like Berry, I cannot imagine life without this intrinsic cycle.
I especially appreciate the notion expressed that “the year is the showing forth of the heavenly love…” With each passing day we have the opportunity to experience anew the love of God. That love may be experienced numerous ways but one of the best is through nature. Even in the falling leaves of autumn we can know God’s love and discern God’s wisdom and ways. The leave, along with the rest of Creation, “hold a while the beauty of God.”
Berry’s “Sabbath Poem” likewise reminds us that God, who is Light, is the Source of all that is. All of Creation, including us, owes its existence to God. All of Creation, including us, shares in the Beauty of God. It is no wonder, then, that all of Creation, including us, becomes “the delight that is our prayer.”
–Chuck