January Poetry

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, 1968