Wildpeace - the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water

Wood duck drake vocalizing in Central Park
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Wildpeace

Wendell Berry

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 might 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.