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. 

Wendall Berry 

We read the Rime of the Ancient Mariner last Monday.  Just for fun.  I had started reading it alone and got so caught up in it I began to read aloud.  My friend and editor Theresa Thomas who had also shared poetry last week suggested a challenge, that we share a bit of poetry close to our hearts each Monday.  

As political debates heat up in the news and even among friends and neighbors a bit of despair can creep into our hearts late at night, wondering how this or that will all play out – for us, for our children. This piece reminds me how to meet that worry.