A Poet Reflects

Accept 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.

—Wendell Berry, last strophe to “How to be a Poet (to remind myself)” from New Collected Poems (Counter Point Press, 2012)