The Peace of Wild Things

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A friend passed this Wendell Berry poem on to me. I would like to pass it on to you.

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.

2 thoughts on “The Peace of Wild Things

  1. Love Wendell Berry. He’s an American treasure. This poem reminds me of my favorite Jane Kenyon poem: Let Evening Come

    Let the light of late afternoon
    shine through chinks in the barn, moving
    up the bales as the sun moves down.

    Let the cricket take up chafing
    as a woman takes up her needles
    and her yarn. Let evening come.

    Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
    in long grass. Let the stars appear
    and the moon disclose her silver horn.

    Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
    Let the wind die down. Let the shed
    go black inside. Let evening come.

    To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
    in the oats, to air in the lung
    let evening come.

    Let it come, as it will, and don’t
    be afraid. God does not leave us
    comfortless, so let evening come.

    • I have been meaning to respond to this all week. I read your poem several days ago, and yes, I agree it has a similar voice. Growing up in the country, I can see all the imagery too. Love it. Thank you for sharing. Let evening come indeed.

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