Wendell Berry is Kentucky’s poet laureate, a resident of Henry County, and he is now approaching 85. He’s a remarkable person, described on Wiki as—-“an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer.” Here is one of his more recent poignant poems from the collection called Sabbath 2016.
The old man in his latter days
prays his thanks, prays his love
of the world to the world’s end,
for out of the perils of his faith.
of human wrongs, of his own mistakes.
he has recovered the thought,
the memory almost, so close
to him it seems, of the man
not of this world, born of this world,
who came to a place on the hillside
and, seeing the multitude, sat down
and into the quiet quietly blessed,
all the sufferers, all the troubled ones.
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