the grace of the world

Guess what? ... I did actually pick up one new collection of poetry during our recent visit to London ;-)

And thinking about Friday's epic walk - here's the title poem, as taken from within the pictured Wendell Berry collection, which was published in 2018:


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.

---

Wendell Berry (1934 - )

---