Here are three poems from Wendell Berry's collection called Given. I would change the title of the first one to How To Be a Person (to remind myself). I wish I could print the second poem and stake it in the ground in front of every extremist church and in the yard of all the zealots out there. He really pegs it - short, simple and deadly accurate... love it. The last one is quite a lament; I was thinking it could be printed in white text over a background of dark, Wal-Mart parking lot.

How To Be a Poet(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill — more of each
than you have — inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work,
doubt their judgment.

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
There are only sacred places
And desecrated places.
__________________________________________
A Small Theology

"With God all things are possible"
-that's the beginning and the end
of theology. If all things are possible,
nothing is impossible.
Why do the godly then
keep slinging out their nooses?
__________________________________________
In A Country Once Forested

The young woodland remembers
the old, a dreamer dreaming

of an old holy book,
an old set of instructions,

and the soil under the grass
is dreaming of a young forest,

and under the pavement the soil
is dreaming of grass.