From the back cover:

The agrarian message has perhaps been the most enduring one of American literature, and we are indeed fortunate to have Wendell Berry continuing in that fine tradition. Mr. Berry writes of values and qualities that are timeless. His vision of reality, sourced in the Kentucky farm that has fed and sheltered the Berry family for three generations, is one of caution and warning, blending his work on the land with his love of family, his faith, his anger, his hope.

"In his seventh collection of verse Berry continues as a reflective poet, drawn to rural life, to nature and its rhythms. Spare, supple lyrics evoke the poet's joy in woods and fields; his experience of pain and the restorative power of faith; and the fulfillment of love as two people grow old together." Publisher's Weekly

"[He] speaks as well as anyone of what is genuine, what is creative, what is ennobling." The Washington Post

Jacket design by David Bullen. 89 pages.

Links:

"A Meeting" (NPR)

"The Slip"

"Ripening" (4interdependence.com)

"Woods" (spiritoftrees.org)

"For the Future" (spiritoftrees.org)

Contents

I.
Stay Home
To Gary Snyder
For the Hog Killing
Goods
The Adze
The Cold Pane
Falling Asleep
A Purification
A Dance
The Fear of Love
Seventeen Years
To What Listens
Woods
The Lilies
Forty Years
A Meeting
The Watchers
Another Descent
Below

II.
The Star
The Hidden Singer
The Necessity of Faith
To the Holy Spirit
Ripening
The Way of Pain
We Who Prayed and Wept
Grief
In Place of Happiness
Fall
A Grace
An Autumn Burning

III.
No Thanks
A Warning to My Readers
Walnut St., Oak St., Sycamore St., etc.
Creation Myth
Now
The Mad Farmer March
Confession
The First
Walking on the River Ice
The Necessity of Flight
Throwing Away the Mail
Except
Eight Below
For the Future
An Encore Maybe
Travelling at Home

IV.
Ronsard's Lament for the Cutting of the Forest of Gastine
The Salad
Watching the Mid-Autumn Moon

V. Three Kentucky River Poems
July, 1773
1975
The Slip

VI. Horses
Horses