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
1 comment:
This poem is respectfully reprinted without the permission of Wendell Berry. If I knew where he was, I'd ask.
I did try to contact him once, a few years ago. Hearing that he lived in Kentucky, I called the only Wendell Berry in that state with a published number.
"Hello?" he said.
"Sir, is this Wendell Berry?" I asked.
He sighed. "Yep," he said, "but not the one yer lookin' fer."
The wrong guy, but a nice guy, nonetheless. I got the feeling he'd heard the question many times. Anyway, if the other Wendell Berry objects, his poem will be removed immediately.
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