Quiet, Please

  

This morning, instead of reading the newspaper and listening to the radio the way I usually do, I ate my eggs while reading Gladys Taber's The Book of Stillmeadow. And when I took my walk, instead of making to-do lists and planning out the day's errands, I did my best to pay attention to the birds and the flowers and the trees, to actually notice them instead of wandering past them lost in my own mental chatter. 

My mind has been too noisy lately. My state had its primary this week, and smack dab in the middle of it was a controversial amendment that caused a lot of hateful talk on both sides. We've also got a famous politician on trial right now, and every morning the paper carries all the sordid, ugly and awful details. Really, it's just too much. 

So I'm trying to be very quiet. It has occurred to me recently that I am welcome to disconnect. If I don't listen to the news or read the paper or check online, I might be uninformed, but my head's a better place to be. And why do I need to be informed that people hate each other? That powerful, narcissistic people believe themselves above the law? That no one is all that interested in peace?

 

Taking my walk this morning, I was reminded of a Wendell Berry poem called "How to Be a Poet," in which he writes, "There are no unsacred places;/there are only sacred places/and desecrated places."  Looking at the trees and the flowers, listening to the birds, feeling the cool air against my face, I knew I was in a sacred place, that the whole world is infused with God except where we've fouled it with our waste and our hate and our ugliness.

A quiet mind. A mind that can read for long stretches of time without being distracted, that can follow a thought through to its conclusion, that can pay attention to what's right in front of it. My mind's not there yet, but I'm working on it. I am practicing being as quiet as I can.

How to Be a Poet

by Wendell Berry

 

Make a place to sit down.   

Sit down. Be quiet.   

You must depend upon   

affection, reading, knowledge,   

skill—more of each   

than you have—inspiration,   

work, growing older, patience,   

for patience joins time   

to eternity. Any readers   

who like your poems,   

doubt their judgment.   

ii   

Breathe with unconditional breath   

the unconditioned air.   

Shun electric wire.   

Communicate slowly. Live   

a three-dimensioned life;   

stay away from screens.   

Stay away from anything   

that obscures the place it is in.   

There are no unsacred places;   

there are only sacred places   

and desecrated places.   

iii   

Accept what comes from silence.   

Make the best you can of it.   

Of the little words that come   

out of the silence, like prayers   

prayed back to the one who prays,   

make a poem that does not disturb   

the silence from which it came.

Source: Poetry (January 2001).