Two poems by Wendell Berry for National Poetry Month

[dragonyphoenix]

The Shining Ones by Wendell Berry

While the land suffers, automobiles thrive,
shining as they glide by the dying towns,
the empty fields bare in winter,
the deserted farmhouses, obstacles merely
to an ideal trajectory from everywhere to anywhere.



From Sabbaths 2005- 2008
XII by Wendell Berry

If we have become a people incapable
of thought, then the brute-thought
of mere power and mere greed
will think for us.

If we have become incapable
of denying ourselves anything
then all that we have
will be taken from us.

If we have no compassion,
we will suffer alone, we will suffer
alone the destruction of ourselves.

There are merely the laws of the world
as known to Shakespeare, as known to Milton:

When we cease from human thought,
a low and effective cunning
stirs in the most inhuman minds.

Comments

[kerkevik.livejournal.com]

"If we have become incapable
of denying ourselves anything
then all that we have
will be taken from us."

Particularly liked this section, from a poem; and a poet I was unaware of.

Thank you,
Still under Willow & Tara's spell,
Ray.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

I only heard of him recently when President Obama awarded him a National Humanities Medal.

I rather like the first and last paragraphs myself.