(To Remind Myself)

"How to Be a Poet"
(to remind myself)


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.

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.

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.

--Wendell Berry

Grateful Dead: Dark Star...8/30/69

pilgrims with Vishnu Temple

below Columbus Point
looking east

Whites Butte
from above Travertine Canyon

The Colonnade
from Phantom Canyon

Colorado River
outside Sapphire Canyon

entering Turquoise Canyon

Zoroaster Temple

upper Tanner Canyon

Aspects of the Same Issue
Down by the Green River Where Paradise Lay
Practice Resurrection
Like the Water
Our Only Hope