I just read a Wendell Berry poem that most people who go to the woods and water ways for peace of mind will love. I hope you enjoy it.
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


4 comments
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September 10, 2009 at 8:12 am
sandrar
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
March 18, 2011 at 11:49 am
Jeanne Genova-Goldstein
One of my favorite poems. It comforts me as the peace of wild things comforts Wendell Berry. I love the phrase “..wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.” Don’t you wish you could do that – lose ability to anticipate grief ?
July 5, 2011 at 11:07 pm
andy
just to lose forethought, to lose a mind set of working ahead to succeed, when the true success is to survive, the wild thing is, the wild does not live their life with the fear of death.
December 24, 2011 at 1:43 pm
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[...] Wendell Berry – The Peace of Wild Things « Photos and thoughts … – Wendell Berry – The Peace of Wild Things. June 26, 2007 in conservation, Massachusetts, Nature, New England, Philosophy, Photography, Poetry, Wendell Berry, Westford. I just read a Wendell Berry poem that most people who go to the … [...]