Shall we do without hope? by Wendell Berry

Shall we do without hope? Part II of poem 2007
by Wendell Berry

Shall we do without hope? Some days
there will be none. But now
to the dry, dead woods floor
they come again, the first
flowers of the year, the assembly
of the faithful, the beautiful,
wholly given up to being.
And in this long season
of machines and mechanical will
there have been small human acts
of compassion, acts of care, work
flowerlike in selfless loveliness.
Leaving hope to the dark
and to a better day,
receive these beauties freely
given, and give thanks.

---

This poem arrived in the mail today as part of a care package from a friend, and I love the ways poems come to me. And this seems a pertinent one with this age of AI, and the need for the acts of care, and the ability of gratitude to serve as practice even if hope itself is hard to find. This is from Leavings (Counterpoint, 2010), the third volume in Berry's Sabbath sequence — the Sunday-walking meditations he has been writing on his Kentucky farm since 1979. Leavings covers 2005–2008

Berry, Shall we do without hope? Part II of poem 2007 from Leavings (Counterpoint, 2010