Sep
7
2018
Caught Off Guard By A Poem
Posted in Poetry 4 Comments
I like to listen to music when I drive.
However, sometimes, I like to listen to teaching, or sermons, or an occasional podcast.
Since I am more auditory than visual, this type of teaching is very helpful to me.
I remember almost everything that I hear.
I was driving along listening to various talks from a 2017 creativity conference.
As God allows, I am going to this same conference in a few weeks.
By listening to the archives from last year, I was whetting my appetite for this year.
I was enjoying the various topics as I listened.
However, one session caught me off guard.
I was not prepared for the way the words hit my heart.
It was a poem that spoke to me.
The poem was written by one of my favorite writers.
Poet, novelist, and environmentalist Wendell Berry lives on a farm in Port Royal, Kentucky near his birthplace, where he has maintained a farm for over 40 years. Mistrustful of technology, he holds deep reverence for the land and is a staunch defender of agrarian values. He is the author of over 40 books of poetry, fiction, and essays. His poetry celebrates the holiness of life and everyday miracles often taken for granted. (https://www.poetryfoundation.org)
Berry strongly believes that small-scale farming is essential to healthy local economies.
He believes in traditional values, such as marital fidelity and strong community ties.
Farming and community are central themes to Berry’s fiction, poetry, and essays.
He has embraced the commonplace and has ennobled it. (Georgia Review)
It was a Wendell Berry poem I heard as I was driving.
I knew a few lines from the poem and had committed them to memory.
I had never heard the poem in its entirety.
If there had been a place to pull over, I would have, just to let the words sink in.
I came home and searched my collection of his poems.
This poem was not included in my book.
I had to do a little searching to find it.
When I found it, the words washed over me again in a new way.
How To Be A Poet (to remind myself)
By Wendell Berry
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.
I read the poem over and over.
I saw the line that I had memorized years before.
I had never known that line in its context.
Berry’s poem spoke to my heart.
Berry is speaking of an unhurried life.
An intentional life.
A less frenetic life.
Berry is speaking about stillness.
We do not practice stillness.
We run from one thing to the next, so that stillness is foreign to us.
Berry quietly directs us in his poem.
He is like a grandfather sitting in a chair by the fire, imparting his wisdom ever so gently.
Sit down. Be quiet.
Breathe with unconditional breath the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire. Communicate slowly.
Stay away from screens. Stay away from anything that obscures the place it is in.
I imagined myself sitting at Berry’s feet as he expounds the wisdom he has gained.
Accept what comes from silence.
Live a three-dimensioned life.
Depend upon affection, reading, knowledge, skill.
I still have not gotten to the bottom of Berry’s meaning.
But I’m digging.
I’m pondering.
Berry’s words caused me to pause.
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10)
We are too busy.
We are too noisy.
The noise does not only come from the outside.
Often the noise is coming from the inside.
You are not enough.
You have nothing to offer.
You will never _______.
Did God really say?
That noise inside our head, condemning us and accusing us, is from the enemy.
The still, small voice of God is a gentle Whisper.
Only in the quiet can you hear it.
Only when the world’s voices are laid aside can we truly hear.
Sit down.
Be quiet.
Breathe.
Depend.
The One who meets you in the stillness is God.
The One who holds you when you feel as if your world is collapsing around you is God.
The One who gives you the breath you need to breathe is God.
The One on whom you depend is God.
There are only sacred places and desecrated places.
In the desecrated places, the noise will deafen you.
In the sacred places, there is stillness, and quiet, and rest.
And God meets you there.
Ugh! So true.
Cathy,
Poems do have a way of hitting the heart.
This poem did that for me.
I am still pondering.
Regina
Gina, did you write this for me?!?
Oh, Pam, I wrote it for you, for me, and for all of us who need to remember the importance of stillness. I am learning to guard that stillness in my own life, with God’s help. How I treasure those times.
Gina