Down in the muck: Wendell Berry on the "inescapable cruelty" of life

"Down in the Muck"
(photo by Andrew Stawarz/Flickr/CC BY-ND 2.0)

Until yesterday while watching the fantastic Bill Moyers interview with Wendell Berry, I had never read or heard his poem, "For the Hog Killing." I'm grateful that my first exposure to this poem was hearing Berry read it aloud, with his soft northern Kentucky drawl.

Around minute 30 of the interview, Berry talks about the gross mistreatment of and cruelty to animals that our industrial food system requires. He then pauses and acknowledges an "inescapable cruelty" to all human life, even for vegetarians. "We have to live at the expense of other creatures." The rule then, he says, is to use fellow creatures (plants and animals) - and the land upon which we all dwell - with the minimum of violence.

Moyers then asks Berry to read the poem, "For the Hog Killing":

Let them stand still for the bullet, and stare the shooter in the eye,
let them die while the sound of the shot is in the air, let them die as they fall,
let the jugular blood spring hot to the knife, let freshet be full,
let this day begin again the change of hogs into people, not the other way around,
for today we celebrate again our lives' wedding with the world,
for by our hunger, by this provisioning, we renew the bond.

"Last Sunset"

At the top of the hill

Under my favorite tree

Looking west, it caught me

The sun setting into Mole Hill

Reigniting the ancient volcano

Goodbye, Shenandoah

In light of the sun

The Rascal in repose

In the space between the shifting of shadows, there is warmth. And he is there with it. Within it. Yes, bathing in it.

The daily rhythms of silent movement while we're away. Yet he is there dancing silently with them. Swaying. Dreaming.

What can we learn from the Rascal cat in his slumber? Are we no less absorbed in the radiance of our suns? Hovering around our constellations?

In the silent singular shine, fur glistens. Muscles twitch. Sighs from the deep eek effortlessly out. Releasing. Renewing. The sun sets, after all, and the Rascal cat reanimates.

Fluorescent Buzzing Silence

The smell of pot strikes me in passing
Simultaneously out of place
But whispering, familiar, and lost.

Words spit into a cellphone:
"Our bikes have been stolen."
Not a good sign.

Settling in, now the chalkboard imperative:
"Leave this room as you found it."
Fine with me. Empty I entered.
Empty I will depart.

Through the slats in the blinds, and glass,
More percussive words punch through
A story between me and the setting sun
Behind the slouching mountains across the valley.

In this fluorescent buzzing silence...like what?
Like it's just what I need today.

Myths and fairy tales; Truths for all times.
Except tonight. Tonight they wait.
Tonight we pause, and in the silence...

The Spirituality of the Cocoon

"Elohim Creating Adam" by William Blake
(view larger image)

The Spirituality of the Cocoon - by me

Almost but not quite

Across my face, shafts of light
Fully formed but not created

Encased in glass
Etching my dreams across the pane
Twisted, crimped and dangling

Wings rustle above me
Soft hair brushes my cheek
Gasping, dusty lungs crackle

Gelatinous eyes rolling, sloshing
Then coming to rest, opening
Ensnaring vines crack and fall away
A mighty wind rises with me

Calling out, fading with the rising sun:
"Awake, O sleeper,
and rise from the dead!"