here's a poem we got at the end of our death unit in humanities.  its long but its very thought-provoking.  i like it, but im not sure if i agree with everything.  what do you guys think about it???

Manifest: Mad Farmer's Liberation Front
By Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay.
Want more of everything 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 millennium.
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 easy in the shade.  Rest your head in her lap.
Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and 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.

i like it. i don't really understand the first stanza, but the rest i like...i think the poet is trying to tell us to "chill" a little bit...if you know what i mean. instead of going through life trying to be a perfectionist, let yourself go a little bit! this is sort of an "ecclesiastical" poem...he seems to be infatuated with meaningless things...but are things we dub as "meaningless" always that way? some things that we dismiss as irelevant and meaningless actually have more worth than we give them. i'll have to give it more thought, because i don't think i'm being very coherent!

i totally agree. but the first stanza i think is rather sarcastic... i think that tone slightly carries throughout the whole poem. "plant sequoias" hehe.

Basically the poet is saying you should break from routine of work and be ready to enjoy simple things. Don't be predictable. I think the poet has some pretty good advice, though I didn't agree with the part about praising ignorance. We are supposed to seek wisdom and understanding, ignorance is more oft followed by the term fools. However, I do understand what the poet was trying to get at.

i think the author would agree w/ you rebe... i think using the word ignorance is more like a wake up call than anything else... its like saying... be wise enough to understand that you dont know everything and that there is always more to learn and on the flip side i think he is saying that we tend to destroy what we do understand... look how we've been destroying the earth.