for today, a poem
that a friend recited
while we were having breakfast in a ger on the Mongolian steppes.
----
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
Wow, that totally connects with me and mine wildlife. The day the bombs fell on Baghdad I came out from underground and almost immediately started this relationship with a young heron down by a river. Every year I long to see it (along with two others now) again, but the river is too low ATM... Peace for sure.
ReplyDeleteaaw, that's almost as lovely as the poem itself! what a great (and peaceful!) message for today.
ReplyDeletei have my own peaceful hideaway in a thick copse of woods near home. a fallen tree where i lie down and look up through a small window in the trees, tucked away and out of sight.
thanks for sharing, R.
-s