Unshapen

"Put your hands into the mire.
They will learn the kinship
of the shaped and unshapen,
the living and the dead."

Wendell Berry

Put your hands into the mire, reach into the bright spirit and bloody tissues inside your ribs, feel the diving spirit and grasp at the bright blood, the wise blood and the cold head, the knowing brain and the stony heart and when you have found your kinship with the red clay and the stony loam, then find a place to wait. Get up and run like hell. Lie down and die. Go out find the biggest giant and remove his head. Hold all those close dear and hold all those dear close. Let them go when they turn away and let them return when they turn toward. Leap and lie. Bound and bounden.

The Mad Farmer also tells us:
"Don't worry and fret about the crops. After you have done all you can for them, let them stand in the weather on their own. If the crop of any one year was all, a man would have to cut his throat every time it hailed. But the real products of any year's work are the farmer's mind and the cropland itself. .... Let him receive the seasons increment into his mind. Let him work it into the soil. The finest growth that farmland can produce is a careful farmer."

And "Let my marriage be brought to the ground. Let my love for this woman enrich the earth. What is its happiness but preparing its place? What is its monument but a rich field?"