The Peace of Wild Things

One of the caregivers at the retreat that I attended this weekend read us this poem. I thought that it was so beautiful and so appropriate for me, since I, too, have found in these past few weeks that I am most at peace when I am surrounded by the grace and solace of nature.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows within 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 I am free.

--Wendell Berry