Do Not Be Ashamed (Monday Poem)

by Wendell Berry

You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had one. And you will know
that they have been there all along,
their eyes on your letters and books,
their hands in your pockets,
their ears wired to your bed.
Though you have done nothing shameful,
they will want you to be ashamed.
They will want you to kneel and weep
and say you should have been like them.
And once you say you are ashamed,
reading the page they hold out to you,
then such light as you have made
in your history will leave you.
They will no longer need to pursue you.
You will pursue them, begging forgiveness.
They will not forgive you.
There is no power against them.
It is only candor that is aloof from them,
only an inward clarity, unashamed,
that they cannot reach. Be ready.
When their light has picked you out
and their questions are asked, say to them:
"I am not ashamed." A sure horizon
will come around you. The heron will begin
his evening flight from the hilltop.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/wendell_berry/poems/130

Traveling at Home (Monday Poem)

by Wendell Berry

Even in a country you know by heart

it's hard to go the same way twice.

The life of the going changes.

The chances change and make a new way.
 Any tree or stone or bird
 can be the bud of a new direction. The
 natural correction is to make intent
 of accident. To get back before dark

 is the art of going.

http://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2014/07/wendell-berry-traveling-at-home.html

Woods (Monday Poem)

by Wendell Berry

I part the out thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
there is singing around me.
Though I am dark
there is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
there is flight around me.



https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/woods-14/
 

Running For Your Life (Monday Poem)

Community Poem collected by Kwame Alexander

What is the color of air?
Who owns the right to breathe?
Why are we so afraid of each other?
When will they come for the brown men I know and love?
What was his crime?
Is there justice for all
In the land of the free?
Or only those who are
White like me?



The first few lines of a community poem collected by @kwamealexander , poet in residence at @npr 

Stay Home (Monday Poem)

by Wendell Berry


I will wait here in the fields
to see how well the rain
brings on the grass.
In the labor of the fields
longer than a man’s life
I am at home. Don’t come with me.
You stay home too.
I will be standing in the woods
where the old trees
move only with the wind
and then with gravity.
In the stillness of the trees
I am at home. Don’t come with me.
You stay home too.



from:
https://luckywords.squarespace.com/episodes/2017/4/28/episode-128-poems-by-robert-frost-and-wendell-berry