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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

from The Peace of Wild Things And Other Poems (Penguin, 2018)


Aug 25, 2025

The Peace of Wild Things

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