Emily Dickinson

Success is counted sweetes
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory

As he defeated--dying--
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

"Alley Violinist" by Robert Lax

if you were an alley violinist

and they threw you money
from three windows

and the first note contained
a nickel and said:
when you play, we dance and
sing, signed
a very poor family

and the second one contained
a dime and said:
i like your playing very much,
signed
a sick old lady

and the last one contained
a dollar and said:
beat it,

would you:
stand there and play?

beat it?

walk away playing your fiddle?


-

Wendell Berry

The first time I remember waking up
in the night was the winter time
when I was about six. Papa had sent
the tobacco crop to Louisville
to be sold, and we sat by the fire
that night, talking and wondering
what it would bring. It was a bad time.
A year of a man's work might be worth
nothing. And papa got up at two o'clock.
And I woke up and heard him leaving.
He saddled his horse and rode over
to the railroad, four miles, and took
the train to Louisville, and came back
in the dark that night, without a dime.

- Wendell Berry


What I love about this poem is how Wendell Berry sits you down on the log next to him by the fire, where you wonder whether or not papa's work will amount to anything. I especially resonate with the last line of the poem. Something human inside of me knows what it's like to be disappointed, but something human inside of me also knows that I need to get up the next day and go back to work.

Keep writing,

Ben