THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

By Wendell Berry

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.