Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go. Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

“Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” from The Country of Marriage, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1973. Also published by Counterpoint Press in The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1999; The Mad Farmer Poems, 2008; New Collected Poems, 2012.

It's A Good Day

 

It's A Good Day

Peggy Lee

	G7	C	Dm7	C	Dm7	C
	Yes, it's a g	ood	day for s	ingin'	a so	ng,

	Dm7	G7	Dm7	C	Dm7	C
And	it's a g	ood	day for m	ovin'	a - l	ong;

	G7	C	Dm7	C	Dm7	C
Yes,	it's a g	ood	day, how could	anyth	ing go w	rong,

	Dm7	G7	Dm7	C
A	good day from	mornin' t	ill ni	ght.

	G7	C	Dm7	C	Dm7	C
	Yes, it's a g	ood	day for s	hinin'	your sh	oes,

	Dm7	G7	Dm7	C	Dm7	C
And	it's a g	ood	day for l	osin'	the b	lues;

	G7	C	Dm7	C	Dm7	C
	Ev'rythi	ng to	gain and n	othin'	to l	ose,

	Dm7	G7	Dm7	C
'Cause it's a g	ood day from m	ornin'	till n	ight.

Bridge:

	C7	F
I s	aid to the sun, "good m	ornin', sun.

	Dm7	G7	Am7
	Rise and	shine, to	day."

	C6	C	C6	Cdim
You know you've	got -	ta g	et	go - in'

	Edim	Gdim
If you're	gonna make a	showin'

	F	Dm7	G7
And you	know you've got the r	ight of	way.

	G7	C	Dm7	C	Dm7	C
	'Cause it's a g	ood	day for p	ayin'	your	bills;

	Dm7	G7	Dm7	C	Dm7	C
And	it's a g	ood	day for c	urin'	your i	lls,

	G7	C	Dm7	C	Dm7	C
So	take a d	eep	breath and th	row a	way your p	ills;

	Dm7	G7	Dm7	C
'Cause it's a	good day from	mornin'	till n	ight.

http://www.chordie.com/chord.pere/www.allcountrytabs.com/tabs/peggy-lee/its-a-good-day-10129.html 

17 years ago on Valentine Day my husband ask me to marry him. So I wrote him a poem today. I'm a dork...I know!

Six Thousand Two Hundred and Six Days

i just wanted to say
you have never turned away from me
i can't explain what this means
but it has meant everything to me
and it is what i needed most in life

you have accepted me as i am
even though i don't believe in lids, doctors, or underwear
you let me wear your socks everyday
because i can never find my own
i also often can't find
my keys...my courage... or even my mind
and you always lend me yours

every evening you lift your arm
physically saying "here is your soft place to fall"
as people, places, and time have zoomed by
we have stayed here...in this space... inches from each others face
holding each other through all the storms
in this life boat that we built to be rocked to sleep in
every night like spoons under the moon

after our first two weeks of dating i told you
i wanted to be included in all your future plans
you said you would and you did
i told you i never wanted to promise forever
i just wanted to wake up one morning when we were 100 yrs old
and say "wow ... we choose each other everyday"
yes we did get marry
but i said it was just for the old people and i meant it

so i just wanted to say
i choose you again today because
you have never turned away from me
i can't explain what this means
but it has meant everything to me
and it is what i needed most in life

Happy Heart Day

So one day  I got out of the shower, towel dried my entire self but apparently missed "the furry body of my butterfly" . I sat down on the bed and to my surprise when I stood up and looked down at the bedsheet there was a wet spot in the shape of a perfect heart. I was so overwhelmed by this moment... magic is alive, the universe is intelligent, I am not an accident, I am stamp, a heart shaped stamp of love. I fell in love with my body a little more that day, my body must be pretty amazing to do such a thing. Immediately I got a sharpie to make it permanent on the sheet (which I still have 10 years later) and took a picture which I will send you when I find it.  It is hard to explain how much this moment meant to me but often when I stand up I think about the invisible heart stamp I leave. Love.

i the serpent woman fly

so do you see the serpent coiled at the base of my spine
and do you recall what it means
can you still read my signs
do you remember being bitten
oh i still know you cried
well is just a warning at this point
but i am warning you don't blink your eyes
cause in a second flat
I'll change my mind

so do you see the serpent writhing up the center of my spine
and do you recall what it means
can you still read my signs
do you remember making love underneath me
i made you blind
and you felt God through me
as seven of your centers open wide

so did you see the serpent slither and hide away
do you recall what it means
can you still read my signs to this day
oh did you watch me shed my skin for five days and be reborn
did you watch me bleed for five nights
in the morning i the serpent woman fly
i the serpent woman fly
i the serpent woman fly

because you can't let go

it never got easy for me
every time you enter my mind
the hole in my heart caves in again
echos of love are heard
i suppose it was endearing in my youth...
my mellow dramatic nature but now I have grown old
they tell you it is better to have loved...
but what they don't tell you is that if you can't let go
the current of it will drag you under
it will feel like you can never breathe again
you will be trapped in the moment just before death
the moment just before sweet release your hole life
your chest will feels like it will burst
trapped beneath the surface
the light just above you
never to touch you again

we are our choices. things that we just make up. in space where our minds float.

i realize even though choices feel like things
real things that you can pick like fruit
things that feel as though they can be weighed in the hands of our minds 
"maybe this one is heavier or this one is sweeter?"
"should I follow my dreams or follow the money?"
you think and you weigh and you think and you weigh
but the truth is... you will never know
you cannot weigh choices
cause unlike real fruit
the fruit in your mind is not real
it is just a metaphorical paper mache replica
that you made from a pro and con list you wrote earlier in the day
written with a pencil made out of perceived past experience and rhetoric
because you are NOT a time traveling psychics with a do over button
you can never ever really know
never know if you should have gone left or right
if you should have held on with all your might
or should have let go a lot sooner
you can never really know what truly lies ahead
choices cannot be weighed to make the "right" one
i realize now that i am a super creative person
that can make very interesting lists and exciting educated/blind guesses
so now when i think something "is like this" or "she is like that"
or "it's clear what should be done"
i no longer feel my thoughts are as solid and opaque as they once were
my mind now seem full of translucent possibilities

-anastasia