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.

– from Wendell Berry in The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

Responses

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  1. Jeff, thank you for this tender tender poem. How lovely it is, and how beautifully it speaks to my heart as I gently push my own goslings out of the nest and encourage them to fly and nest and make their own way in this wide world. And the restless sleep I have during this time of transition, and the fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be….
    What a tender capturing of Psalm 23….
    awwwww…….
    Thank you Lord for Wendell…
    and Jeff,
    And the day-blind stars…
    Amen