When despair for the world
grows in me
and I wake in the night at the
least sound
in fear of what my life and my
children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the
wood drake
rests in his beauty on the
water, and the great heron
feeds.
I come into the peace of wild
things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the
presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-
blind stars
waiting with their light. For a
time
I rest in the grace of the
world, and am free.
- "The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry
grows in me
and I wake in the night at the
least sound
in fear of what my life and my
children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the
wood drake
rests in his beauty on the
water, and the great heron
feeds.
I come into the peace of wild
things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the
presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-
blind stars
waiting with their light. For a
time
I rest in the grace of the
world, and am free.
- "The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry
