Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

"And what there is to conquer...
has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate..."

One of these men is Wendell Berry. His words follow.


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.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
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.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
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.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion-put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and 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. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Stork and Crow

Are you my stork, I your crow?
From this distance, I hope.
Are you a solitary bird
With a peculiar gait?
You can commune here in joy or grief
Or quietude by my river bank.

But wait – do you understand?

I need not the rehabilitation
Of my former, fallacious wings
(The restoration
Of breasts newly-budded.)

These aren't scars at all, see.
Do you understand?
Just some residual evidence
Of undercover blessings.

I need not your affirmation
That I am powerful and whole
(Don't waste your words, my darling,
Convincing me of things that I ought know.)

If you're confused by silence,
Disdainful of soil,
Preferring to its wisdom
The vagarious dignities of fearful men,
Or if you are not awestruck by both loins and womb --

If you do not have the courage to meet the giant
With your five dry loaves and two small fish,
Having resolved that they can indeed nourish the world --

If you do not see that our home is carried in whole
On the wings of butterflies, and that it is no less captivating
Or fragile --

If you cannot see and hear and feel clearly
This, what they call shabbier,
but what I know is stronger
self --

If I move my hands
And in the soft space under my arm
(a secret, but unguarded)
You do not recognize the bounty --

Ah, darling, don't fear, I'll still love you.
I'll spread my wings wide and I'll bless you.
But fly on in peace.
I am waiting neither for a teacher nor a pupil
Neither for a mason nor a tool
But for my Stork,
Against whose feathers, mine will be brighter,
And who against my wing, will be more radiant.

When paired together, who knows what could be illuminated?

But if you do recognize, make no sound:
Come, here, quietly.
Sit with me.
Let me feed you,
The best fish you have ever tasted,
Fresh from my most hidden places.

Before we take flight again, together,
Still warm with the miracle that we
are both seeing and being seen so clearly –
And that the energy of this rarest glow
Is healing our earth
More than ever we could know.

Whence we go

I remember when we used to make
Cookie-cutter virgin mothers
Snow angels and fervent promises
Sealed them with a glitter lip-gloss kiss.

Translucent faces and tidy nails
We wore our hair up in Lolita tails.
We used the lunch box to run the shirt
That made the boys want to touch us.

Where did we go?
Where did we go?
I’ve been waiting for the answer
But the postal service has slowed.
So I’ve been biding my time
Over Scotch whisky and legends
Knowing that with every page
We’re slipping further and further and further away.

I’ve known the city and her allure
Her sin-rouge lips refused to be ignored
She sang rock ‘n roll and played the tambourine
She spoke in the language of artist’s dreams.

I read the black market book of spells
I wondered why my heroes went to hell
I’m sorry if I spoiled your plan
The siren song, it shook my steady hand.

Where did we go?
Where did we go?
I’ve been waiting for the answer
But the postal service has slowed.
So I’ve been biding my time
Over stale coffee and theorems
Knowing that with every page
We’re slipping further and further and further away.

I remember we got in trouble when
We used the scissors to cut our bangs
Now no one even notices
Our bandaged wrists and noses.

Where did we go?
Where did we go?
I’ve been waiting for the answer
But the postal service has closed.

My Body Climbed a Mountain

My body climbed a mountain
The tallest in this country.

This body that I thought was my ball and chain
It carried me up a mountain
The tallest in this country.

In front of this alien mask
Through the looking glass
Wishing it ill
Hating the soft places

It stifled my Spirit of St. Louis
Kept my red-letter flight grounded
It corrupted movements of sentiment
And made me vulnerable to the vagaries
Of men's attentions
And women's criticisms
And a brutal moral climate.

Vulnerable is not my color.

I resented it, even as I exploited it.

But my body climbed a mountain, I said.
The tallest in this country.

We worked together,
My mind and my body,
Over boulders and through falls
And at the summit,
We communed
For the first time in many years.

Vahaza Woman

Vahaza woman
Donnez-moi; Donnez-moi; Donnez-moi
Les bonbons (literal or figurative, one never knows)
Eyes - in them a melange of desire and self-contempt, bitterness and is that a pinch of malice? -
On les grandes seins
Comme tous les images de
The apple-pie Jezebels,
The fertile blow-up dolls
Who shake their Vahaza goods
On all the televisions
Every night,
From hill to dale
Translucent tits paired with hot-cross-buns.

Yum Yum.

Or half the body for half the price -
Cropped at neck and knee -
No need for these -
Too tough to chew through.

These eyes want the prime rib, baby.
Only the best cut for this fine gentilhomme.
Would you like me to trim the fat?

Vahaza woman
Humanitarian or harlot?
Il n'import quoi.

Snap.Snap.Snap.
Raise your eyes.
My mouth is moving,
Asking questions, telling stories, proving my personhood, something divine.
In between my chin and my nose.
Northward troops!
You're getting warmer.

What do you see when you look at me?
Damn sure it's not capability,
Or heart and mind riddled with funny notches (won't call them scars) borne of absurdities,
Or contradictions of unflagging tenderness in my spleen but gravel in my gut,
That, if you bothered, you'd understand were far from contradictions.

But you see a blur of white, indistinct,
(Because we all look the same, you admit as much)
You see a lasso in my hand to capture the stars for which you're straining
(You want the Big Dipper; No interest for the Southern Cross).
I am simply the means
To achieving dreams.

But I am not a tool.
This is not cultural insensitivity --
This is me
Telling you
That I will not be the object of either your fears or desires.
Re-pocket your hand; I will not be your garden hoe or milk cow.
I will be but your equal; ax sharpening ax.
I will be but your equal; flint against stone, together performing impossible, making magic.
I will be but your equal; our unique wisdoms paired for stunning clarity.

So retrain your eyes -
Find my mind, the seat of my history and my potential -
And we, together, maybe,
Can then begin to heal.