The song of the way in.
Akiba THE WAY OUT The night is covered with signs. The body and face of man, with signs, and his journeys. Where the rock is split and speaks to the water; the flame speaks to the cloud; the red splatter, abstraction, on the door speaks to the angel and the …
this is what life does.
Starfish This is what life does. It lets you walk up to the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman down beside you at the counter who says, Last …
each has been sent as a guide from beyond
The Guest House This being human is a guest house.Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness,some momentary awareness comesas an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all!Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,who violently sweep your houseempty of its furniture,still, treat each guest honorably.He may be …
Wherever you are is called Here
Lost Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside youAre not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,Must ask permission to know it and be known.The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,I have made this place around you,If you leave it you may …
we create without turning
The Apple Tree I remember this tree,its white flowers all unfallen.It’s the fall, the unfallen appleshold their brightnessa little longer into the blue air, hold the dreamthey can be brighter. We create without turning,without looking back, without everreally knowing we create.Having tastedthe first flower of the first springwe go on,we …
have time, and silence, enough paper to make mistakes and go on.
The Poet She is working now, in a room not unlike this one, the one where I write, or you read. Her table is covered with paper. The light of the lamp would be tempered by a shade, where the bulb's single harshness might dissolve, but it is not; she …
find the one line already written inside you.
The Journey Above the mountainsthe Geese turn intothe light againPainting theirblack silhouetteson an open sky.Sometimes everythinghas to beinscribed acrossthe heavensso you can findthe one linealready writteninside you.Sometimes it takesa great skyto find thatsmall, brightand indescribablewedge of freedomin your own heart.Sometimes withthe bones of the blacksticks left when the firehas gone …
What you fear will not go away: it will take you into yourself and bless you and keep you.
For My Young Friends Who are Afraid There is a country to cross you willfind in the corner of your eye, inthe quick slip of your foot–air fardown, a snap that might have caught.And maybe for you, for me, a high, passingvoice that finds its way by beingafraid. That country …
To love another is something like prayer and can’t be planned
Admonitions to a Special Person Watch out for power, for its avalanche can bury you, snow, snow, snow, smothering your mountain. Watch out for hate, it can open its mouth and you'll fling yourself out to eat off your leg, an instant leper. Watch out for friends, because when you …
communicate slowly
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 …
