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 waters
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

by wendell berry