The Peace of Wild ThingsWhen despair for the world grows in meand I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my childrens lives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I come into the peace of wild thingswho do not tax their lives with forethoughtof grief. I come into the presence of still water.And I feel above me the day-blind starswaiting with their light. For a timeI rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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About Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry was a contemporary American writer. Wendell Erdman Berry is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays of The Gift of Good Land (1981) and The Unsettling of America (1977). Read more on Wikipedia →

Themes

  • Nature — Appreciation for the natural world and our place within it
  • Peace — The pursuit of harmony, reconciliation, and inner calm
  • Poetry — The art of language, rhythm, and emotional expression

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