[Oe List ...] [Dialogue] A Wendell Berry poem for this day.

[Ellie Stock via OE]

Thanks for sending this poem, Seth.  Wendell Berry is a treasure.  So much wisdom lived and spoken...
Ellie Stock
elliestock at aol.com

Sent from AOL Mobile Mail


-----Original Message-----
From: Seth Longacre via Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
To: oe <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>; dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Sun, Oct 16, 2016 08:31 PM
Subject: [Dialogue] A Wendell Berry poem for this day.



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<div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="aolReplacedBody">I thought this poem would resonate with many of us.<div><div>
<blockquote><div><div id="aolmail_ygrp-mlmsg" style="font-size: 13px; font-family: Arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative;"><div id="aolmail_ygrp-msg" style="line-height: 1.22em; z-index: 1;"><div id="aolmail_ygrp-text" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Georgia;"><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,</font><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">for hope must not depend on feeling good</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">and there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">of the future, which surely will surprise us,</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">and hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">any more than by wishing. But stop dithering.</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them?</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">Tell them at least what you say to yourself. </font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;"></font> </div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">Because we have not made our lives to fit</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">the streams polluted, the mountains overturned. Hope</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">then to belong to your place by your own knowledge</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">of what it is that no other place is, and by</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">your caring for it as you care for no other place, this</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">place that you belong to though it is not yours,</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">for it was from the beginning and will be to the end. </font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;"></font> </div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">Belong to your place by knowledge of the others who are</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">your neighbors in it: the old man, sick and poor,</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">who comes like a heron to fish in the creek,</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">and the fish in the creek, and the heron who manlike</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">fishes for the fish in the creek, and the birds who sing</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">in the trees in the silence of the fisherman</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">and the heron, and the trees that keep the land</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">they stand upon as we too must keep it, or die. </font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;"></font> </div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">This knowledge cannot be taken from you by power</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">or by wealth. It will stop your ears to the powerful</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">when they ask for your faith, and to the wealthy</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">when they ask for your land and your work.</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">Answer with knowledge of the others who are here</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">and how to be here with them. By this knowledge</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">make the sense you need to make. By it stand</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">in the dignity of good sense, whatever may follow.</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;"></font> </div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">Speak to your fellow humans as your place</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">has taught you to speak, as it has spoken to you.</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">Speak its dialect as your old compatriots spoke it</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">before they had heard a radio. Speak</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">publicly what cannot be taught or learned in public. </font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;"></font> </div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">from the pages of books and from your own heart.</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">Be still and listen to the voices that belong</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">to the streambanks and the trees and the open fields.</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">There are songs and sayings that belong to this place,</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">by which it speaks for itself and no other. </font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;"></font> </div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">Found your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">underfoot. Be it lighted by the light that falls</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">freely upon it after the darkness of the nights</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">and the darkness of our ignorance and madness.</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">Let it be lighted also by the light that is within you,</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">which is the light of imagination. By it you see</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">the likeness of people in other places to yourself</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">in your place. It lights invariably the need for care</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">toward other people, other creatures, in other places</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">as you would ask them for care toward your place and you. </font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;"></font> </div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">No place at last is better than the world. The world</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">is no better than its places. Its places at last</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">are no better than their people while their people</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">continue in them. When the people make</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">dark the light within them, the world darkens.</font></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;"></font> </div><div align="center" style="line-height: 1.22em; font-family: Calibri;"><font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS" style="line-height: 1.22em;">~ Wendell Berry ~</font></div><div style="line-height: 1.22em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><br class="aolmail_webkit-block-placeholder"></div></div><div style="line-height: 1.22em; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); height: 0px;">__._,_.___</div><div style="line-height: 1.22em; clear: both;"></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div>
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