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 take 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

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