The Peace of Wild Things

So many distressing events are happening in the world these days. Perhaps the most tragic and far-reaching could be the collapsed BP drill in the Gulf of Mexico, still gushing after 36 days. Wendell Berry's poem offers some (temporary) solace.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I awake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's life 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.