“The Peace Of Wild Things” By Wendell Berry

"The Peace Of Wild Things" By Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry & “The Peace Of Wild Things”

by TeachThought Staff

Presented without context, a beautiful poem about suffering, anxiety about the future, and ultimately–finally–love.

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