Wendell Berry - The Peace of Wild Things

[jcb]

The Peace of Wild Things
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 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.

[DJD]

My immediate thoughts when I read this was times I spent as a child in a Jon boat by myself fishing among the cypress trees on lake Marion in South Carolina. I guess that was when things were peaceful.
we use to camp most weekends at Mack's fish camp and it was awesome. Weird how reading something like that took me back there.

[MrSplitshot]

Awesome. That's all I can really say.

It's weird, before ever reading Don's comment, that took me back to when I was a kid too. I used to beg Mom and Dad to drive me the hour and a half down to Taylor County and let me spend some time at my Uncle's house. I could walk down the hill behind his place, climb down under a highway overpass, and get some great bank access to the Robinson Creek arm of Green River Lake, especially when the lake was down. I loved it. I'd walk down there and spend hours and hours fishing those banks and catching bass...mostly small ones, but the occasional larger fish. It was my favorite place and where I learned to fish and love the sport. I'd see the bass boats out on the lake and dream up all kinds of concoctions of how I was going to have my own boat one day and get out there where you caught the big fish on every cast. (lol) It's was definitely peaceful and a whole lot simpler time in my life.

[SLP]

I am a big fan of his. Here is a link to a video someone made reading one of one of my favorites of his Three Elegiac Poems - YouTube

[DJD]

I am a big fan of his. Here is a link to a video someone made reading one of one of my favorites of his Three Elegiac Poems - YouTube

Awesome and sad....having lost my dad a few years ago this made me weep. This does make me want to slow down and enjoy the simpler things in life more than I do. This is a very good reminder.

[peter]

That's nice. Wendell is good.

It reminds me of last Friday morning and the Saturday before and the saturday before and next saturday at 4am waiting for bait come up under the light in some dark corner of the lake.

When I get out of my car at the ramp an hour before first light I just cant believe what I see and hear. Every time.