Welcome, traveler! Enter and take your rest...

A chaikhana is a teahouse along the legendary Silk Road pilgrimage and trading route linking China to the Middle East and Europe. It is a place of rest along the journey, a place to shake off the dust of the road, to sip tea, and to gather together to sing songs of the Divine...


The Real Work

by Wendell Berry
 

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

-- from Standing by Words: Essays, by Wendell Berry

/ Image by myINQI /

View All Poems by Wendell Berry


I know the Poetry Chaikhana emails haven't been keeping to their regular weekly schedule recently. My computer work has been especially active in the last few months. And, of course, the chaos playing out on the world stage cries out for a healing presence. So the poetry comes when the day allows. But you, and the world of poetry, are very much in my mind each week regardless.

Now to the poem...

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Oh, I just like this, don't you? As I get older and encounter more of the world and more of myself, I grow increasingly wary of answers. It's the questions that awaken the soul.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

Berry is reminding us that struggle and confusion -- and wonder! -- are signs that we are on a good path, that we are paying attention, that we are still seeking and discovering, that we are alive. The scariest people are those who've grown tired of questions and so brutalize the world with simple answers.


Okay, a poetic confession: This was not originally a poem in verse. I did a bit of research and found that this is actually an excerpt from one of Wendell Berry's essays that someone later versified. It's been circulating as a poem ever since. I guess you can't trap a good poet in prose for long. My apologies to the poetry purists out there.


Now, let's discover a new path through this magical, unknown day...


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/ Photo by Maria Hossmar /

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