wendell berry's "questionnaire"

For some odd reason I awoke before sunrise today. I struggled to keep my eyes open, and periodically returned to my bed for a nap or two, but have continued to ponder this poem by Wendell Berry I read at about 6:00 am. "Questionnaire" is worth our reflection on a day set aside to pay our respect to  sisters and brothers who gave themselves over to death in our various wars. Freedom is always costly. So as some of my fellow Americans flaunt their rights today by refusing to honor social distancing, disregarding the possibility that their actions could be infecting another more vulnerable citizen with the deadly corona virus, and ignoring the necessary balancing always required between freedom and responsibility, I wonder if we have become what we hated. I know deep inside that the overwhelming majority of my nation despise these willful acts of both
ignorance and arrogance so I pray we are able to keep some perspective. This poem helped me...

Questionnaire - from his book Leavings (2010)

1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.