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The peace of wild things
I am a worrier. Sometimes. It's usually subterranean but every once in a while a little persistent swarm of worry bees wake me in the middle of the night and demand attention. And, in spite of the fact that I can do nothing about my kids' music lessons, or world peace, or shopping lists, or the possibility of termites infesting our house at 3:00 in the morning, I insanely indulge them. I'm going to get this poem out the next time and read those little perky worries to sleep.
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
Friday, September 14, 2007
Reader Comments (4)
I, too, am a middle-of-the-night worrier. That was a beautiful poem. I'm afraid if I went out and laid down in the wood drake that I would get eaten alive by mosquitos. Sigh...
True! Yeah...I guess that's another thing wild things don't have to worry about. So we'd have to wear repellent and then we'd worry about the DEET hurting us. Then we'd leave off the repellent but worry about mosquito-borne illnesses.
I seem to only worry at night when Nathan is out of town. Last night I had to get out of bed to double check that the garage freezer was shut all the way. For whatever reason I got that worry in my head I couldn't let it go. Of course it was shut.
Wow...so beautiful! I usually sleep like a log, my husband is the one who tosses and turns. I'll refer him to the poem, but I can already tell you--he won't get it!