come into the peace of wild things

This poem was making the rounds last week, both because it is wonderful, and because of this very soothing and beautiful reading by Samuel West (thanks to Cat for drawing my attention to the reading). I love this poem, and the fact that I haven't posted any Wendell Berry in thirteen years (how?!) is honestly a crime.

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 (b. 1934), "The Peace of Wild Things," originally published in Openings: Poems, 1968.