A favorite prayer poem by Wendell Berry

Prayer poems are secular psalms that I keep rereading over the days of my life. Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, Ursula Le Guin, Maya Angelou, Victoria Chang have, W.S. Merwin, Raymond Chandler, A.R. Ammons...

I love Wendell Berry for 50 years now. Kristi and I read vows to each other at our wedding out of Wendell's The Country of Marriage.

I dream of you walking at night along the streams

of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs

of birds opening around you as you walk.

You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep...

So he's like family to me in vision and values and the way he gently revolts against, rages against the machine.

Here's a poem a friend sent me this week for no reason but friendship.

If you are new to poems and reading poetry, try reading to yourself the first time.

Then read the poem a second time, and this time aloud so you get the sounds the poet was going for in linking these particular words together:

How to Be a Poet

By 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.