"The Peace of Wild Things"
"When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of 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 for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."
- Wendell Berry
(thanks, cp)
3 comments:
It's a beautiful thought, but I don't think it fits the truth of nature. I too feel the peace he wrote of, but I know that my peace is connected with my belief that I am safe and warm and have plenty to eat. Nothing in the wild is safe, and, of course, I'm not really safe either.
It is a lovely poem but it would not do for me. Now, my husband would go to the woods and sleep there, but once I went hiking with him in the Sierras and we had to sleep on the ground, not even under a tent. I could not sleep – I could hear so many sounds and I knew bears were around – did not sleep at all – I have slept much better in a hotel in the center of Paris!
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