Monday, October 26, 2020

Wendall Berry Sabbath Poem

Tanya and Wendell Berry working in the field, Courtesy of Platform Media Group

Praise “family values,”

“a better future for our children,”

displacing meanwhile the familiar

membership to be a “labor force”

of homeless strangers. Praise

work and name it “jobs.”

With “labor-saving technology”

replace workers at their work

and hold them in contempt

because they have no “jobs.”

Praise “our country” and oppress

the land with poisons, gouges,

blastings, the violent labors and

pleasures of the unresting displaced,

skinning the earth alive.

This is the way, the truth, and the life.


Welcome the refugees set free

from the “nowhere” of rural America,

from the “drudgery” of the household

and the “mind-numbing work”

of shops and farms, into 

the anthills of “liberation”

the endless vistas of “growth,”

of “progress,” the “limitless adventure

of the human spirit” rising

through inward emptiness into

“outer space.” Welcome

the displaced naturally “upwardly

mobile” to their “better world”

as they gather bright-lighted

in “multicultural” masses

in the packed streets. Catch 

those who inevitably

fall from the light-swarm

in meshes of “safety nets,” “benefits,”

“job training,” the army,

the wars, mental hospitals,

jails, graves. Forget

vocation, memory, living

and dying at home. This

is the way, the truth, and the life.


Flourish your weapons of official

war where they are needed

for peace, bring death by chance

but needfully to small houses

where children play at war

or a wedding is taking place

so that the bride and the groom

will not be separately killed,

for you have an enemy

somewhere, who must be killed.

Therefor forgive the unofficial

entrepreneur who brings

your weapons to your 

school, your office, your

neighborhood theater, bringing

death randomly but needfully,

for his enemies are his

as yours are yours. This is

the way, the truth, and the life.


Wendell Berry

Sabbath Poem XIV, 2012

5 comments:

  1. I too was thinking about 'family' yesterday!
    Our family stays scattered,connected only by phone, of course video and audio. We are managing rather than living. So also are many, we recall and get solace.
    This slided down to think about 'facebook'as 'family book'!
    In politics,in business,in institutions we see the domination and continuation of family values. Whereas unfortunately family themselves are remaining split, fallen apart.
    May be it is time to rethink about joint families.
    This poem may be well considered a call.

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  2. This poem is called a "jeremiad" - a long, mournful complaint or lamentation; a list of woes. The word jeremiad was coined in 1700s France, as jérémiade, and it was a reference to the Old Testament's "Lamentations of Jeremiah."

    Jeremiah is the Biblical prophet who warns of doom.

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  3. I, personally, find a lot of hope in this "jeremiad" because it names the lie and shows the way to truth.

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