ROOTS TO THE EARTH ~

C O U N T E R P O I N T      P R E S S

A SMALL PORCH ~

Wendell Berry with horses on his farm

Courtesy of Platform Media Group




VIII.

A SMALL PORCH IN THE WOODS


9.


To care for what we know requires

care for what we don't, the world's lives

dark in the soil, dark in the dark.



Forbearance is the first care we give

to what we do not know. We live

by lives we don't intend, lives

that exceed our thoughts and needs, outlast

our designs, staying by passing through,

surviving again and again the risky passages

from ice to warmth, dark to light.



Rightness of scale is our second care:

the willingness to think and work

within the limits of our competence

to do no permanent wrong to anything

of permanent worth to the earth's life,

known or unknown, now or ever, never

destroying by knowledge, unknowingly,

what we do not know, so that the world

in its mystery, the known unknown world,

will live and thrive while we live.


                     .    .    .


And our competence to do no

permanent wrong to the land

is limited by the land's competence

to suffer our ignorance, our errors,

and — provided the scale

is right — to recover, to be made whole.



_________________

WENDELL BERRY

A Small Porch

Sabbath Poems 2014 and 2015

together with 

"The Presence of Nature in the Natural World:

A Long Conversation"

C O U N T E R P O I N T, 2016

ANZHELINA POLONSKAYA ~

Paul Klee's Boat


Soon it will be winter and soon

a nightingale with a bandaged throat,

a plum tree in bloom, and a white

hill pushed up against the door.



Illness arrives like Mozart,

sits down at the black piano

and its voice touches with a single note.



I see January, a blockade,

you're sketching Paul Klee's boat,

big on petite.



It sails along, the fool, not knowing —

can't brush the wave from its eyelash.



Somewhere a shutter bangs shut,

and you bend toward the sketch.

Mozart creates like a god!

And the two of us, childless.



We'd be husband and wife,

together forever it seemed.

But burned by Greeks and barbarians

we fled, leaving no trace.

_________________

Anzhelina Polonskaya
translated by the Russian by
Andrew Wachtel  
Zephyr Press
2013

COUNTRY JOE MCDONALD SINGS WOODY GUTHRIE ~

RICHARD RORTY ~

Harvard, 1998

____________________________________________________________

[M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers — themselves desperately afraid of being downsized — are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.

At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. …

One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past 40 years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. … All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.

_____________________________________________

R I C H A R D      R O R T Y,  1998

See More

UNIVERSE ~

Gathering Wood

Dark dark in the woods

My son walks, stumbles

Over brush and limbs, looks

Where to step by watching

My legs — how I do it —

Carrying the saw, not

Much talk (he is only two)

But instead we seem to be

Singing quietly about end

Of day around us, the tall

Trees taking light, his hands

Grip dry sticks for a cookstove

And the love of his mother,

We are heading back home

5 Year Old Logic

On A Winter Night


Under quilts he

says he is too hot



folding down the bed to

a sheet & one blanket



he looks up & says

he is too cold

Approval

  

We hiked into the woodlot first snow

Brought home a tree for the holidays

Misshapen hemlock few would look twice at

And because you were sick we held the

Tree outside the kitchen window for

You to see, smile, nod an approval

Point quickly to a chickadee

Off on a high branch

End of Story

Looking out at the hillside

Across the river and over the

Trees from our home Carson asks —

“Did we climb that mountain?”

I say, “No, but mommy and I did.”

Nodding, he decides, “Oh yeah,

We climbed that before I was born.”

Another Simple Story

We skated and skated

Later looking over

The lake north to

Snow clouds coming

And skated some more

(you do that with a child)

And because of that

Drove home in snow

_________________________

Bob Arnold

Once In Vermont

Gnomon

"Universe" 

painting by Bob Arnold 

(detail)

SLOWLY ~

PAUL SIEBEL ~

The musician's first album, one I've owned for 46 years

and will one day hand it over to someone

who will enjoy it as much

SHARON JONES ~

 ———  Sharon Jones has passed away at 60  ———  

N E W    Y O R K    T I M E S

VASILY GROSSMAN ~

New York Review of Books, 2013

Written in 1962 when Grossman had only two years left to live

(cancer) this modest, kind and yet engrossing

travelogue will take you to places

on land and within yourself

where you probably have never been.

AN  ARMENIAN  SKETCHBOOK

THE LAND OF OPEN GRAVES ~

University of California Press 2015

JASON  DE  LEON

KAKISTOCRACY ~

___________________

"Kakistocracy"

(look it up)

(we're there)

—————————————————

MORE MARCUS, MORE MUSIC ~

G R E I L      M A R C U S


Now at the age of 70
too old to really listen to
(but you should!)
far older than "30"
(yes)
and going on and on and on
book after blessed book
years of this
and thankfully
he has done this;
Greil Marcus
has reached the level of
Jesse Fuller
— a one-man-band. 

HERE'S TO MOSE ~

November 11, 1927 – November 15, 2016

KISSING BOOTH ~

Susan with our 
granddaughter
Ida



It's an unsettled time —
so hold someone
kiss someone

—————————
photo ~ bob arnold

DARLING COMPANION ~

Baby  Asleep

Walk around

Listening to

My boots

Mother & Child

You lift  

him

with a

smile

 &  he

smiles

 back

 which lifts

 you

Immediate Family

                                               for Cid

Either sentimental 

Or superstitious &

Maybe both while

Finishing a day

Tree cutting I

Kneel to level

A last ash stump

Which throws up

Two wet leaves onto

The fresh wood &

Seeing that add

One more leaf be-

Tween the two

Making sure

All touch

A True Story

                                              for Jim Koller

You’ll know what I am saying

When I say

She took 4 old chickens down the road

Along the woods river

And where she let them go

A few steps into the trees

Where no one has ever lived

A porcupine, the biggest she

Had ever seen, up near

Ledge on the hillside

Close enough so they could

See each other’s eyes and the

Chickens were between them

How he raised himself

How he waved to her 

Teamwork

Every morning by the cookstove

I loop long laces on my work

Boots, tie a simple bow —

He’s three years old, can’t

Tie his own boots, but sits

Down next to me and unties mine

_____________________________

Bob Arnold
Once In Vermont
Gnomon

photo: Bob Arnold
(Susan & Carson in Montana)