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That Time I Met Wendell Berry…

The SouthWord Literary Festival, 2017 – Chattanooga, TN.

Writers included some of my all-time favorites. A list as talented as the Golden State Warriors of present day. No. Better. Way way better. Forget the comparison. Just look at the list below.

In no particular order:

Wendell Berry (I could stop right here.)

Tom Franklin

Jim Grimsley

Tim Gautreaux

Ron Rash

Steve Yarbrough

Maurice Manning

Bobbie Ann Mason

Charles Frazier

George Singleton

Brad Watson

Allan Gurganus

Tony Earley

Lee Smith

Silas House

Richard & Robert Bausch


Now I understand why some obsess over Disney World/ Disney Land. This conference housed rock stars in the literary arena, and they all came together and discussed the craft of writing. I was star struck like a girl at her first Beatle’s concert. May the magic never wear off! I’ll probably never wash hand again.

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It’s Friday! Let’s read Wendell Berry!

The Sycamore

In the place that is my own place, whose earth

I am shaped in and must bear, there is an old tree growing,

a great sycamore that is a wondrous healer of itself.

oldsycamoretree

Fences have been tied to it, nails driven into it,

Hacks and whittles cut in it, the lightning has burned it.

There is no year it has flourished in

that has not harmed it. There is a hollow in it

that is its death, though its living brims whitely

at the lip of the darkness and flows outward.

Over all its scars has come the seamless white

of the bark. It bears the gnarls of its history

healed over. It has risen to a strange perfection

in the warp and bending of its long growth.

It has gathered all accidents into its purpose.

It has become the intention and radiance of its dark fate.

It is a fact, sublime, mystical and unassailable.

In all the country there is no other like it.

I recognize in it a principle, an indwelling

the same as itself, and greater, that I would be ruled by.

I see that it stands in its place, and feeds upon it,

and is fed upon, and is native, and maker.

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Permanency.

The world changes minute-by-minute. Man-made advancements and technological marvels rise. The earth itself is always subjected to freeways, turnpikes, & sludge. Here’s a little comfort in knowing nature’s resiliency through it all–

 

river

 

“Men may dam it and say that they have made a lake but it will

still

be a river.

It will keep its nature and bide its time,

like a caged animal alert for the slightest opening.

In time,

it will have its way;

the dam, like the ancient cliffs,

will be carried away…

piecemeal…

in the currents.”

 

–Wendell Berry

 

(Beautiful imagery for your Wednesday from the greatest poet living today!)