Hello and welcome to The Daily Poem. I'm Heidi White, filling in for David Kern, and today is Tuesday, October 13th. Today I'm going to read for you a poem by American poet Wendell Berry. If you are a regular listener to the Daily Poem, you recognize the name. You've heard many poems by him here on the Daily Poem. He's a favorite of ours. Wendell Berry is a poet, an activist,

a farmer, an essayist, a novelist. He lives in Henry County, Kentucky, where he was born in

1934, and he lives there still. He farms the land and lives with his wife. He has grown children. And he writes about his homeland, about community, about small town American life. And he invites us to hold those things as sacred as he does and to see them through sacramental eyes the way that he does. And today's poem is called 1997, four.

You see, my mother said and laughed, knowing I knew the passage she was remembering.

Finally, you lose everything.

She had lost parents, husband, friends, youth, health health most comforts many hopes deaf asleep in her chair awakened by a hands touch

she would look up and smile and welcome as quiet as if she had seen us coming she watched curious, curious and affectionate, the sparrows,

titmice and chickadees she fed at her kitchen window. Where did they come from? Where did they go?

No matter. They came and went as freely as in the time of her old age, her children came and went,

uncaptured, but fed. And I, walking in the time of her old age her children came and went, uncaptured, but fed. And I, walking in the

first spring of her absence, know again her inextinguishable delight, the wild bluebells, the yellow

celendine, violets purple and white, twin leaf, blood root, larkspur the ruin enemy light light under the big trees and overhead the red bud blooming the red bird singing the oak leaves like flowers still unfolding in the blue sky.

This poem captured my attention because of its reverence and elevation of motherhood and not just the most memorable years of motherhood, the getting your kids fed and getting them to school, like the young,

vibrant years of motherhood. There's many superb poems that explore that experience and it's

well worth exploring. I'm in those years myself as a mother. But this particular poem elevates, examines, and reverences, reverences, reveres the experience of a son looking at his mother as she is old and continuing to learn from her.

I really find that very precious.

There's something about Wendell Berry that opens my eyes to see the beauty of life at every stage.

And this particular poem looks at his mother through his eyes.

We learn late in the poem that he's lost his mother. And he is experiencing

memories of her as he's walking under a tree the first spring after her death. And his memories of her

are very tender. In sweet, he remembers her quoting the Bible. He remembers the losses of her life, and he holds those losses sacred and grieves with her.

And he sees her as she is old and alone, having lost many of these important things, comforts and the relationships of her life. She's lost her youth and he says

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