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 [...]

Sleeping in the Forest by Mary Oliver

I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the [...]

Te Deum by Charles Reznikoff

Not because of victories I sing, having none, but for the common sunshine, the breeze, the largess of the spring. Not for victory but for the day’s work done as well as I was able; not for a seat upon the dais but at the common table. May we all make our intentions to work [...]

Gratitude by Mary Oliver

What did you notice? The dew snail; the low-flying sparrow; the bat, on the wind, in the dark; big-chested geese, in the V of sleekest performance; the soft toad, patient in the hot sand; the sweet-hungry ants; the uproar of mice in the empty house; the tin music of the cricket’s body; the blouse of [...]

We Ain’t Got No Money, Honey, But We Got Rain by Charles Bukowski

This poem really grabs me. It is amazing how truthful Mr Bukowski can be. Read on: call it the greenhouse effect or whatever but it just doesn’t rain like it used to. I particularly remember the rains of the depression era. there wasn’t any money but there was plenty of rain. it wouldn’t rain for [...]

Contrast by Robinson Jeffers

The world has many seas, Mediterranean, Atlantic, but here is the shore of the one ocean. And here the heavy future hangs like a cloud; the enormous scene; the enormous games preparing Weigh on the water and strain the rock; the stage is here, the play is conceived; the players are not found. I saw [...]