The Peace of Wild Things

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When despair 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 for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. 

*******
✎Wendell Berry (Henry County, Kentucky, United States, born 5 August 1934)
 ◙ Artwork: Henri-Joseph Harpignies

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