108.

my political self looks a lot different than the bandanna-wearing college girl carrying her bike overhead across a downtown intersection in a friday rush hour. or the hollering young thing that marched DC streets on the third anniversary of the Iraq war. it's not necessarily by choice. hearing, "this is what democracy looks like!" chant at a rally still gives me butterflies and because of the days of yore i've got some close calls, fond memories, and lessons learned stored away in my catalog of adventure. still, most of the change-making i do these days happens in the classroom with words and images and conversations. i hope my tending to the tiny sparks hasn't caused me to lose the fire.

in the midst of this afternoontime work i stumbled across this poem that i used in a poetry of protest unit i taught last year. then i remembered that it's "super tuesday" and thought that maybe i'd "go political" for a moment. next blog will be back to the regular programed flowery metaphors about the south, words like britches, and professional musings.

in the meantime, here's a poem from Wendell Berry. a god-loving, non-electricity-having, land-worshiping Kentucky farmer teacher man.
i don't love it, but i like it. i like what he remembers as a result of fogging up the window in his own head and stealing back the punch cards in their drawers.

cheers friends. let's make every tuesday super.

Manifesto:
The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
by Wendell Berry

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 millenium. 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 to giving birth?

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