Advertisement
Not a member of Pastebin yet?
Sign Up,
it unlocks many cool features!
- The Mad Farmer, Flying the Flag of Rough Branch, Secedes from the Union. By Wendell Berry
- From the union of power and money
- From the union of power and secrecy,
- From the union of government and science,
- From the union of government and art,
- From the union of science and money,
- From the union of genius and war,
- From the union of outer space and inner vacuity,
- The Mad Farmer walks quietly away.
- There is only one of him, but he goes.
- He returns to the small country he calls home,
- His own nation small enough to walk across.
- He goes shadowy into the local woods,
- And brightly into the local meadows and croplands.
- He goes to the care of neighbors,
- He goes into the care of neighbors.
- He goes to the potluck supper, a dish
- From each house for the hunger of every house.
- He goes into the quiet of early mornings
- Of days when he is not going anywhere.
- Calling his neighbors together in to the sanctity
- Of their lives separate and together
- In the one life of the commonwealth and home,
- In their own nation small enough for a story
- Or song to travel across in an hour, he cries:
- Come all ye conservatives and liberals
- Who want to conserve the good things and be free,
- Come away from the merchants of big answers,
- Whose hands are metalled with power;
- From the union of anywhere and everywhere
- By the purchase of everything from everybody at the lowest price
- And the sale of anything to anybody at the highest price;
- From the union of work and debt, work and despair;
- From the wage-slavery of the helplessly well-employed.
- From the union of self-gratification and self-annihilation,
- Secede into the care for one another
- And for the good gifts of Heaven and Earth.
- Come into the life of the body, the one body
- Granted to you in all the history of time.
- Come into the body’s economy, its daily work,
- And its replenishment at mealtimes and at night.
- Come into the body’s thanksgiving, when it knows
- And acknowledges itself a living soul.
- Come into the dance of the community, joined
- In a circle, hand in hand, the dance of the eternal
- Love of women and men for one another
- And of neighbors and friends for one another.
- Always disappearing, always returning,
- Calling his neighbors to return, to think again
- Of the care of flocks and herds, of gardens
- And fields, of woodlots and forests and the uncut groves,
- Calling them separately and together, calling and calling,
- He goes forever toward the long restful evening
- And the croak of the night heron over the river at dark.
Advertisement
Add Comment
Please, Sign In to add comment
Advertisement