My Quaker-Atheist Friend, Who Has Come to This Meeting House,
Smokes & Looks Out over the Rawthey to Holme Fell
what do you do
anything for?
you do it
for what the mediaevals would call
something like
the Glory of God
doing it for money
that doesn’t do it;
doing it for vanity,
that doesn’t do it;
doing it to justify a disorderly life,
that doesn’t do it
Look at the Briggflatts here . . .
It represents the best
that the people were able to do
they didn’t do it for gain;
in fact, they must have
taken a loss
whether it is a stone next to a stone
or a word next to a word,
it is the glory—
the simple craft of it
and money and sex aren’t worth
bugger-all, not
bugger all
solid, common, vulgar words,
the ones you can touch,
the ones that yield
—and a respect for the music . . .
what else can you tell ‘em?
by Jonathan Williams
from The Language They Speak Is Things to Eat
The University of North Carolina Press, 1994