How to be a poet to remind myself, written and read by Wendelberry.

Make a place to sit down, sit down, be quiet.

You must depend upon affection, reading, knowledge, skill.

Four of each then you have, inspiration, work growing older patients.

For patients joins time to eternity.

Any readers who like your poems doubt their judgment.

Breathe with unconditional breath, the unconditioned air.

Done electric wire, communicate slowly, live a three-dimensioned life.

Stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsecret places.

There are only sacred places and desecrated places.

What comes from silence?

Make the best you can of it.

Of the little words that come out of the silence like prayers, prayed back to the one who

prays, make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came.