Welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Rees Podcast Network. I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is by Wendell Berry. I've read from him a couple times here on the show.

Many of you probably know that I'm a big fan of his poetry. He was born in 1934. He is a

Kentucky novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, farmer.

And the poem that I'm going to read today was recommended by a listener on Facebook.

It's called The Vacation, and it seems, given the time of year, the appropriate time to go ahead and read it.

This is how it goes. This is Wendell Berry's The Vacation.

Once there was a man who filmed his vacation,

he went flying down the river in his boat with his video camera to his eye,

making a moving picture of the moving river upon which his sleek boat

moved swiftly toward the end of his vacation.

He showed his vacation to his camera, which pictured it, preserving it forever.

The river, the trees, the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat behind which he stood with his camera,

preserving his vacation, even as he was having it, so that after he had had it,

he would still have it. It would be there. With a flick of a switch, he would be there.

But he would not be in it. He would never be in it.

I remember speaking with Wendell Berry once for an interview that we did that ended up in our magazine, Forma.

And I remember him telling me a story like the story that shows up in this poem.

He wrote about it in other places as well.

He references it in his fiction like in J. Jabber Crow and in many of his essays.

But here we have this story of a man out on the river enjoying the day, presumably.

And Barry told me that over the years he remembers seeing people out on the river that he lives nearby,

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