Photo By Paul Danese – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=141414631

Dear Readers, the American poet Wendell Berry died on Monday, so it feels only appropriate to share this, probably his best known poem, with you all. I feel as if I need this today, and maybe you do too.

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.