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Wendell Berry’s “Sabbath Poem III, 1994” · The Daily Poem

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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, the podcast from Goldberry Studios.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Friday, September 11th, 2026.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by Wendell Berry.
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  SPEAKER_00: It rounds out a week of tribute to Berry and his poetry.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you are a Berry lover, I hope it was a gratifying week.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you're new to Berry and his poetry, I hope you will continue to seek it out.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's much to be had, and it's all wonderful.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is a Also one of his Sabbath poems, number three from 1994.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'll read it once, offer a few comments, and read it one more time.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sabbath poem number three, 1994.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's an epigraph.
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  SPEAKER_00: Ye must be born again.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think of Gloucester, blind,
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  SPEAKER_00: led through the world to the world's edge by the hand of a stranger
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  SPEAKER_00: who is his faithful son,
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  SPEAKER_00: At the cliff's verge,
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  SPEAKER_00: he flings away his life as of no worth,
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  SPEAKER_00: the true way lost,
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  SPEAKER_00: his eyes two bleeding wounds,
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  SPEAKER_00: and finds his life again and is led on by the forsaken son
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  SPEAKER_00: who has become his father,
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  SPEAKER_00: that the good may recognize each other and at last go ripe to death.
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  SPEAKER_00: We live the given life and not the planned.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is a poem about one of my absolute favorite scenes,
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  SPEAKER_00: maybe in all of Shakespeare,
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  SPEAKER_00: certainly in King Lear,
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  SPEAKER_00: when Gloucester is blind and he's wandering toward the cliffs of Dover and he asks
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  SPEAKER_00: a stranger to help him to the edge because he wants to cast himself off.
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  SPEAKER_00: And who he meets is his son in disguise.
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  SPEAKER_00: Naturally then,
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  SPEAKER_00: his son,
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  SPEAKER_00: not wishing to see his father perish,
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  SPEAKER_00: leads him to a small hillock and helps him tumble over and then pretends
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  SPEAKER_00: that he is now a second stranger at the far bottom of the cliff
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  SPEAKER_00: who has seen him miraculously survive a great fall.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Speak yet again, thy life is a miracle.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's a ruse,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's a deception,
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  SPEAKER_00: but it's one in service of the reality,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is that his life is a miracle,
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  SPEAKER_00: that all life is a miracle,
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  SPEAKER_00: though each individual life may take twists and turns and assume forms
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  SPEAKER_00: that we did not anticipate or desire.
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  SPEAKER_00: But when we cast away the life we insisted upon,
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  SPEAKER_00: sometimes we find the one we were meant to have.
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  SPEAKER_00: We live a given life and not the planned.
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  SPEAKER_00: Here's the poem one more time.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think of Gloucester, blind,
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  SPEAKER_00: led through the world to the world's edge by the hand of a stranger
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  SPEAKER_00: who is his faithful son.
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  SPEAKER_00: At the cliff's verge,
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  SPEAKER_00: he flings away his life as of no worth,
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  SPEAKER_00: the true way lost, his eyes two bleeding wounds, and finds his life again.
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  SPEAKER_00: And is led on by the forsaken son who has become his father.
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  SPEAKER_00: That the good may recognize each other and at last go ripe to death.
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  SPEAKER_00: We live the given life and not the planned.
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  SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
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  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back next week with more poetry for you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Find us at dailypoempod.substack.com to listen to past episodes of The Daily Poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: Offer your own thoughts about each day's poem and or become a subscriber
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  SPEAKER_00: and supporter of the show.
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  SPEAKER_00: For all of us at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson wishing you happy reading.