The winter world of loss

     And grief is gone.  The

night

     Is past.  Along the whole

     Length of the river, birds

     Are singing in the trees.

     Again hope dreams itself

     Awake.  The year's first

lambs

     Cry in the morning dark.

     And, after all, we have 

     A garden in our minds.

     We living know the worth

     Of all the dead have done

     Or hoped to do.  We know

     That hearts, against their 

doom, 

     Must plight an ancient troth.

     Now come the bride and 

groom, 

     Now come the man and

woman

     Who must begin again

     The work divine and

human

     By which we live on earth.

-Wendell Berry, an untitled 1992 "Sabbath" poem