The Peace of the 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. This poem is excerpted from "The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry" and is reprinted with permission of the author and Counterpoint Press.

A daily reminder, writ large in our dining room. 

Having finally had enough! of the chintz fabric that padded the walls in our dining room, we ripped it all down one summer and painted the walls a neutral 'Shelburne Buff'.  Then with a lot of math and a lot of measuring, I ordered the entire poem in a slightly reflective, almost iridescent ecru in an old-fashioned script.  It stayed on the wall for years, until we unpacked beloved art work from Singapore, and a difficult choice had to be made.  Down came the poem and up went our Asian treasures.  I was feeling a little sorry for myself until we went to Folino's Pizza up the road in Shelburne and there it was — writ large on their dining room wall.  After the general election of 2016, I had it as my Facebook cover photo for weeks.