Hodgepodge 284/365 - Poetry (Wendell Berry)

I posted another poem of Wendell Berry's a few months back, but I ran across this one today and was so struck by the lines "There are no unsacred places; / there are only sacred places / and desecrated places" and "make a poem that does not disturb / the silence from which it came"—especially on this day after North Korea rattled its saber, and Trump bombasted back (or vice versa: I've lost track of who started what in that little bully match) and this day, the 72nd anniversary of the second atomic bomb, which flattened Nagasaki—that I felt moved to post this quiet, solid, loving, patient ("for patience joins time / to eternity") poem.

How to Be a Poet

Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.