Jeanne Poland's Poetry Blog
16 Apr 2024 Leave a comment
in Poetry Tags: contrast, Friedrich Nietsche, go without sight, shadow, Shakespeare, travel by dark wings, Wendell Berry
I’ve been told that we should generally leave a few shadow
threads in each of our poems even if only for contrast.
To go into the dark with a light is to
know the light.ie. go dark.
Go without sight, and find that the dark, too,
blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
Wendell Berry
Man’s shadow, I thought, is his vanity.
Friedrich Nietzsche
This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.
Shakespeare
06 Oct 2020 Leave a comment
in Poetry Tags: at dusk, Before Dark, down the river, dusky as his shadow, farther, Kingfisher, led by his delight, New Collected Poems, out of hearing, out of sight, splashing, Wendell Berry, wild in flight
Before Dark
Wendell Berry
From the porch at dusk I watched
a kingfisher wild in flight
he could only have made for joy.
He came down the river, splashing
against the water’s dimming face
like a skipped rock, passing
on down out of sight. And still
I could hear the splashes
farther and farther away
as it grew darker. He came back
the same way,
dusky as his shadow,
sudden beyond the willows.
The splashes went on out of hearing.
It was dark then. Somewhere
the night had accommodated him
—at the place he was headed for
or where, led by his delight,
he came.
“Before Dark” by Wendell Berry, from New Collected Poems. © Counterpoint Press, 2012. Reprinted with permission.
05 Aug 2020 Leave a comment
in do unto others, Poetry Tags: better than any argument, civilization, do unto others, downstream, on his farm, rise at dawn to pick dew wet red berries in a cup, the natural world, upstream, Wendell Berry, what passes for it
It’s the 86th birthday of environmental writer Wendell Berry,
born in Port Royal, Kentucky (1934).
Berry publishes poetry, essays, and novels, most of which reflect his concern for the natural world and the ways we interact with it.
Berry continues to live and work on his farm in his hometown.
Berry said, “Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.”
He said, “You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.”
And he said,
“Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.”
23 Jan 2020 Leave a comment
in Botticelli's Venus, Poetry Tags: a thousand years, alight, Botticelli's Venus, gleam of the river, little touches, near nightfall, out of a dark grave, out of the waves, shaken, the vision, Wendell Berry, willows touching her
The Venus of Botticelli
by Wendell Berry
I knew her when I saw her
in the vision of Botticelli, riding
shoreward out of the waves,
and afterward she was in my mind
as she had been before, but changed,
so that if I saw her here, near
nightfall, striding off the gleam
of the Kentucky River as it darkened
behind her, the willows touching
her with little touches laid
on breast and arm and thigh, I
would rise as after a thousand
years, as out of the dark grave,
alight, shaken, to remember her.
“The Venus of Botticelli” by Wendell Berry
from New Collected Poems. Counterpoint © 2012.
Reprinted with permission.
29 Apr 2016 Leave a comment
in Accept What Comes From Silence, Poetry Tags: Accept What Comes From Silence, eternity sculpt its tribute, How To Be A Poet, silence ruffle your feathers, the vast diminish you, Wendell Berry
let
the vast
diminish you;
the silence
ruffle your feathers;
eternity
sculpt its tribute
on your face.
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 the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
Wendell Berry
in “How to Be a Poet”
final stanza added on in New Collected Poems
The Vibrant Channeled Creator 