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I've always liked poetry, but I'm definitely not alone in that, because there's hardly anyone who doesn't like poetry. There are always poems that one or the other may not like, but at least as many that meet a very personal taste and some even that make everyday life a little easier, or at least put a smile on your face. Others, on the other hand, entice the reader to think further, and some poems never let the reader go at all.
You can see this again and again, especially with old people, of whom everyone can certainly still recite a very specific poem, namely the poem that made a lasting impression decades ago.
The poem I quoted here is from Wendell Berry from 1973 and is more up-to-date than it has been for a long time.
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
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 into 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, do something every day
that won't compute. love the lord
love the world Work for nothing.
Take everything you have and be poor.
Love someone who doesn't 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 whatever
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 plan,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mould.
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
although you have considered all the facts.
As long as women don't 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 give birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is next in your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicians
can predict the motions of your mind,
loose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the wrong trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
something in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
And who is now wondering why I'm on Wendell Berry I recommend reading a little more about him. He came back to me through the many crosses that have recently sprout from all fields.
His way of life may be terribly antiquated and certainly has been so since ancient times, but what he is trying to express is worth considering.
"We need better government, no doubt about it. But we also need better minds, better friendships, better marriages, better communities.”
Wendell Berry, A Continuous Harmony (2012 [1970]: 77)
