Wendell Berry and the Life and Death of Peter De Mott
by Tom Joyce
‘So, Friends, every day do something
That won’t compute. Love the Lord.’
These are two lines from the poet Wendell Berry’s “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front”. The poem, in the collection The Country of Marriage, was written in the early 1970’s, which was really “the 60’s” for those of us young at the time. That “Manifesto” has, as they say, stood the test of time. It is a series of 40 plus gems, each of which, like the selection at the heading, stands on its own and is often quoted.
We, Ourselves For Life,
I had taken to reading Wendell Berry poetry during the months leading up to this year’s Peace Trot. A few times we read his poetry at our planning meetings. Wendell Berry wrote poetry, we try to live it out, but Peter De Mott exemplified it in his life. It is almost as if Peter lived long before all this was written. Or that they were written with Peter and those like him in mind. I continue to reflect on the circle of life and death and how it is so not at straight line.
Wendell Berry is one of many poets Peter enjoyed and there is so much in his poetry that reminds us of him.
‘Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.’
‘Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts.’
I think that the simple things of life were Peter’s passion. He wasn’t afflicted by grandiose ideas.
‘All goes back to the earth,
and so I do not desire
pride of excess or power,
but the contentments made
by men who have had little:
the fisherman’s silence
receiving the river’s grace,
the gardener’s musing on rows.
from “The Want of Peace” (Openings)
‘But the end, too, is part
of the pattern, the last
labor of the heart:
to learn to lie still,
one with the earth
again, and let the world go.
from “Awake At Night” (Farmer A Hand Book)
For Children,
Peter and I often talked about our children, who would do what, what brought laughter, what we were doing to relieve their burden, “fearing for them”. Wendell Berry wrote in “To My Children, Fearing For Them” (Openings), that
‘Terrors are to come. The earth
is poisoned with narrow lives.
I think of you. What you will
live through, or perish by, eats
at my heart. What have I done?’
There is a theme throughout Wendell Berry’s poetry of not being afraid to look at the reality of our world, the “terrors” that the Marlon Brando character in the movie Apocalypse Now sees in his living nightmare. On one hand. But on the other, to expect and live its remedy. He says in “Manifesto” - ‘Expect the end of the world. Laugh.’
The well known poem “A Discipline” begins and ends with that theme. This poem introduces the book, The Time’s Discipline by Philip Berrigan and Elizabeth McAlister. ‘Turn toward the holocaust, it approaches on every side, there is no other place to turn...It is the time’s discipline to think of the death of all living, and yet live.’
What else can we give our children but the awareness of what our world is and what we are called to be in it?
And Death
You know, when you get to know someone really well, invariably you talk about dying and if so graced, your own. Peter and I did that on occasion and much of it can be summed up in Psalm 90, which I read at his funeral. If I could characterize those discussions in brief, as I intend, it is that despite all of our machinations about time, we’re here in the flesh a very short time and it can end suddenly. Let’s be about what we really believe, so there will be no regrets. I’m pretty sure Peter went that way.
In the poem “Testament” (The Country of Marriage), --- I almost wrote “and Peter wrote”---, Wendell Berry wrote,
‘So treat me, even dead,
As a man who has a place
To go, and something to do.
Don’t muck up my face...
Dress me in the clothes
I wore in the day’s round.
Lay me in a wooden box.
Put the box in the ground.
‘But do not let your ignorance
Of my spirit’s whereabouts dismay
You, or overwhelm your thoughts.
Be careful not to say
Anything too final. Whatever
Is unsure is possible, and life is bigger
Than flesh.....’
--Thomas Joyce
‘So, Friends, every day do something
That won’t compute. Love the Lord.’
These are two lines from the poet Wendell Berry’s “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front”. The poem, in the collection The Country of Marriage, was written in the early 1970’s, which was really “the 60’s” for those of us young at the time. That “Manifesto” has, as they say, stood the test of time. It is a series of 40 plus gems, each of which, like the selection at the heading, stands on its own and is often quoted.
We, Ourselves For Life,
I had taken to reading Wendell Berry poetry during the months leading up to this year’s Peace Trot. A few times we read his poetry at our planning meetings. Wendell Berry wrote poetry, we try to live it out, but Peter De Mott exemplified it in his life. It is almost as if Peter lived long before all this was written. Or that they were written with Peter and those like him in mind. I continue to reflect on the circle of life and death and how it is so not at straight line.
Wendell Berry is one of many poets Peter enjoyed and there is so much in his poetry that reminds us of him.
‘Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.’
‘Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts.’
I think that the simple things of life were Peter’s passion. He wasn’t afflicted by grandiose ideas.
‘All goes back to the earth,
and so I do not desire
pride of excess or power,
but the contentments made
by men who have had little:
the fisherman’s silence
receiving the river’s grace,
the gardener’s musing on rows.
from “The Want of Peace” (Openings)
‘But the end, too, is part
of the pattern, the last
labor of the heart:
to learn to lie still,
one with the earth
again, and let the world go.
from “Awake At Night” (Farmer A Hand Book)
For Children,
Peter and I often talked about our children, who would do what, what brought laughter, what we were doing to relieve their burden, “fearing for them”. Wendell Berry wrote in “To My Children, Fearing For Them” (Openings), that
‘Terrors are to come. The earth
is poisoned with narrow lives.
I think of you. What you will
live through, or perish by, eats
at my heart. What have I done?’
There is a theme throughout Wendell Berry’s poetry of not being afraid to look at the reality of our world, the “terrors” that the Marlon Brando character in the movie Apocalypse Now sees in his living nightmare. On one hand. But on the other, to expect and live its remedy. He says in “Manifesto” - ‘Expect the end of the world. Laugh.’
The well known poem “A Discipline” begins and ends with that theme. This poem introduces the book, The Time’s Discipline by Philip Berrigan and Elizabeth McAlister. ‘Turn toward the holocaust, it approaches on every side, there is no other place to turn...It is the time’s discipline to think of the death of all living, and yet live.’
What else can we give our children but the awareness of what our world is and what we are called to be in it?
And Death
You know, when you get to know someone really well, invariably you talk about dying and if so graced, your own. Peter and I did that on occasion and much of it can be summed up in Psalm 90, which I read at his funeral. If I could characterize those discussions in brief, as I intend, it is that despite all of our machinations about time, we’re here in the flesh a very short time and it can end suddenly. Let’s be about what we really believe, so there will be no regrets. I’m pretty sure Peter went that way.
In the poem “Testament” (The Country of Marriage), --- I almost wrote “and Peter wrote”---, Wendell Berry wrote,
‘So treat me, even dead,
As a man who has a place
To go, and something to do.
Don’t muck up my face...
Dress me in the clothes
I wore in the day’s round.
Lay me in a wooden box.
Put the box in the ground.
‘But do not let your ignorance
Of my spirit’s whereabouts dismay
You, or overwhelm your thoughts.
Be careful not to say
Anything too final. Whatever
Is unsure is possible, and life is bigger
Than flesh.....’
--Thomas Joyce