“XI” by Wendell Berry

The need comes on me now
to speak across the years
to those who finally will live here
after the present ruin, in the absence
of most of my kind who by now
are dead, or have given their minds
to machines and become strange,
"over-qualified" for the hard
handwork that must be done
to remake, so far as humans
can remake, all that humans
have unmade. To you, whoever
you may be, I say: Come,
meaning to stay. Come,
willing to learn what this place,
like no other, will ask of you
and your children, if you mean
to stay. "This land responds
to good treatment," I heard
my father say time and again
in his passion to renew, to make
whole, what ill use had broken.
And so to you, whose lives
taken from the life of this place
I cannot foretell, I say:
Come, and treat it well.

from This Day

https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/twa-the-writers-almanac-for-november-30-2020/

Guess who's coming to dinner

Radio play goes behind the scenes of 1967 dinner that challenged America https://t.co/e79eb8Uo8f
(https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1333059699684544512?s=02)

“The Tables Turned” by William Wordsworth

UP! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless—
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—
We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/twa-the-writers-almanac-for-november-27-2020/

How to write a book

Worth a try.
(https://twitter.com/philosophybites/status/1332264866145570818?s=02)

Carl Sagan, boy scientist

Did you happen catch my little cameo as my grandmother Rachel last night on @COSMOSonTV ?
(https://twitter.com/SashaSagan/status/1326570879741022208?s=02)