Monday, June 6, 2011

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of 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 for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

By Wendell Berry
Collected Poems
(North Point Press, 1985).

No comments: