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. I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting for their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
