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 Barry’s words paint a picture of this time so well. Where there’s anxiety and fear and when it feels we’ll likely give over to despair, there too is grace to be found in stillness, presence and connection to the earth.
The poet invites us to consider the wild, vast, expansiveness of the earth is also offering respite from the wildness of our restless minds.
Where do you find grace? Is it an image, or a place you can call to mind in moments of need?
—Jessica Lien, Prairiewoods development coordinator