Monday, September 01, 2014

The Peace of Wild Things



Today as he was walking away from the house and toward the deep woods, the buck reached up a grabbed a few of the tender tip-leaves as he passed. I think the plant is a speckled alder, but will go out and check tomorrow. I was reminded of the Wendell Berry poem below.


The Peace of Wild Things

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.


Wendell Berry

from Collected Poems 1957-1982 (Counterpoint Press, 1985).


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