Patience, Time, Eternity

Now, only now, is the mystery made known.

Kentucky farmer and writer Wendell Berry (b. 1934) wrote a poem called, simply enough, “How to Be a Poet” with the whimsical subtitle “(to remind myself).” Even if you have no ambition to write poetry yourself, I still encourage you to visit the Poetry Foundation website and read the poem in its entirety: for Berry’s advice to poets could almost word fo…