The Mad Farmer Manifesto: The First Amendment

By: Wendell Berry

1.

That is the glimmering vein
of our sanity, dividing from us
from the start: land under us
to steady us when we stood,
free men in the great communion
of the free. The vision keeps 
lighting in my mind, a window
on the horizon in the dark.

2. 

To be sane in a mad time
is bad for the brain, worse
for the heart. The world
is a holy vision, had we clarity
to see it -- a clarity that men
depend on men to make.

3. 

It is ignorant money I declare
myself free from, money fat
and dreaming in its sums, driving
us into the streets of absence,
stranding the pasture trees
in the deserted language of banks.

4. 

And I declare myself free 
from ignorant love. You easy lovers 
and forgivers of mankind, stand back!
I will love you at a distance,
and not because you deserve it.
My love must be discriminate
or fail to bear its weight.

---

You can find this poem in The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry.

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