Without Forethought of Grief

A wood duck pair visited our pond yesterday evening, the first we've ever seen here. It reminded me of a favorite Wendell Berry poem.

Credit: http://arnica.csustan.edu/photos/animals/wood_duck.jpg

The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound of 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.