paul·a·ver

Years ago, when I wore a ponytail, canvas hightops, flannel shirts, and a motorcycle jacket, when my glasses were round with cable tips, and I looked through them at the Holsteins and Herefords dotting the southern Wisconsin hills, thinking I could live well and properly by teaching, serving friends in my community by sharing thoughts and words with young people, I read poetry.

I consumed Gary Snyder and considered moving to California only for his words.

In the evening, when I was through with a day of chalkboards and my own inexpertly delivered lectures and poorly run discussions, I studied William Carlos Williams as a journeyman studies a master, by imitation. Then, I deposited each scrap in a wastebasket under the sink, where my sweetheart of the time would not find them, and under the illusion that those publishable pieces I’d create someday when my hair returned to the shocking white shade it bragged in my childhood would be more valuable in their absence.

I read the Beats.

When Raymond Carver passed away far too young, I grieved that no voice could ever sing his part.

I read and reread Donald Hall, transfixed.

There were, of course, many others.

I could not recite a stanza, not even a line, from that period of my life from memory. Still, all these words, now two fleeting decades old to my ears, have meant more to me than anything since, with the exception of the miracle of my children, the blessing of my wife, and the magic of many friendships. And they echo, somewhere on their last repeat, where I can still hear them, though I’m already listening to the next song.

I doubt anyone, who knows me now, knows this.

This weekend, I rediscovered one of these voices living not far off, here in Bluegrass State, when Wendell Berry, who once reminded me to “come into the peace of wild things,” appeared on public television to share his “Thoughts in the Presence of Fear.”

It aired again last night, and in my haste to prepare for the impending holidays, I missed it. It’s not poetry, but it reads as if it were, consisting of twenty-one stanzas of prose, points of consideration for those of us living in the present state of fear, this commonwealth of anxiety, cynicism, and apocalysm.

Berry commented that many of the things he’d written decades ago, he’d written hopefully, believing that they’d become part of a conversation that would change things for the better. Many of these things have become worse, he says, and that’s the most painful thing for a writer.

Still, I find his “thoughts in the presence of fear” hopeful, and for this holiday on which we ask for peace, here are some of the points I hear ringing in the season.

National self-righteousness, like personal self-righteousness, is a mistake. It is misleading. It is a sign of weakness.

What leads to peace is not violence but peaceableness, which is not passivity, but an alert, informed, practiced, and active state of being.

Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. It’s proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible.

We do need a “new economy”, but one that is founded on thrift and care, on saving and conserving, not on excess and waste. An economy based on waste is inherently and hopelessly violent, and war is its inevitable by-product. We need a peaceable economy.

I have two children, and one day, I hope to share the responsibility of peaceableness with them. I hope they will grow from the brash and aggressive rascals who sometimes push and shove on the soccer field into the kind of men who will care for the people and world around them and make sacrifices, even for their enemies.

That’s what I want for Christmas, and the poets have reminded me.

technorati: poetry, peace, Christmas, Wendell Berry