Practice Resurrection — Photography to “Manifesto” by Wendell Berry

All Text: Excerpted from “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” by Wendell Berry

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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…

Pop Art Shopping Carts

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

Garden Water Pump in Sanford Farm Garden, Old World Wisconsin

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it…

Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Redwood Abstract

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 plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

What's in this Pond?

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

West Bluff, Devils Lake State Park

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

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Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.

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Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts…

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Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Lavender Fields and Bee Boxes

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts…

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As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go.

The Path Beyond

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.

Kure Beach Sunrise, November 8, 2013

Practice resurrection.

Excerpts from “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” by Wendell Berry

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I’m posting a poem each day in April, National Poetry Month. Updated poems from my blog archives, new poems written as sacred practice, and selected, favorite poems from other poets. Today’s photography essay was inspired by the words of Wendell Berry and posted in honor of Earth Day 2016.