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.


I fell asleep while watching TV and woke to Wendell Berry reciting his poem to a church audience. Just days before I had read it for the first time; someone had posted it on the board in the faculty office. I cried inside that day. Then cried aloud some more as I read my photocopied page. I read it often.

So tender and true and touching. It just speaks to what I need.  We are healed of pain and hurt in so many ways. Resting in the peace of God's beautiful natural world is one powerful way.