Poetry Friday is hosted by Tara at A Teaching Life.
I am having a rough fall. Teaching, medical, world events, and anxiety makes it difficult to post consistently. When I found this poem on Facebook this week it was a perfect poem for me.
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
Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things” from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. Copyright © 1998. Published and reprinted by arrangement with Counterpoint Press.
Source: Collected Poems 1957-1982 (Counterpoint Press, 1985)
Wendell Berry reads the poem HERE.
And a photo that gives me peace:
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Mmmmm, good. The Wendell Berry lines,
“day-blind stars waiting
for their light.”
is what I needed today.
Wishes for greater days for you.
Appreciations for your sharing “The Peace of Wild Things,” new to me & that’s a lovely gift.
Yes, so much to wish for: peace in all things for you and everyone, Jone. Hope your surgery goes well and that you are healed and back sharing your special love of literacy with your students.
These lines convey peace to me:
“I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.”
i love everything by Wendall Berry! I’m glad this poem offered something to hold on to this week. Best wishes for your health and a place of peace, Jone.
I shared a Wendell Berry poem recently, love his work. I love “rest in the grace of the world”, such a hopeful thought. I’m sorry for you tough fall, Jone, & hope for better for you, and for our world, too.
Wishing you peace.
Thanks for sharing this poem. Wishes for a calm with no “forethought of grief”! Not easy to do.
That’s a perfect poem when you need to be away from the hubbub and troubles. Wishing you grace and peace!
Beautiful. Peace to you, dear one.