Worth a re-post

This being Poetry Month, I thought I would  re-post this blog I first posted in 2006.  Enjoy!

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Peace of Wild Things

In times of mind numbing busyness, it is oh so wise to stop what we are doing and step off the merry-go-round of life for awhile. I always have a poetry book or two handy to grab for just such times. When the whirling and twirling gets to be just too much and my head becomes dizzy from the spinning, I know it is time to feast on some poetry and then step into the quiet calm of the great outdoors.

I picked up a new book I got from the library the other day, Risk Everything, 110 Poems of Love and Revelation, and this poem oozed from the page and drizzled over my hot frazzled soul like a cool soothing balm. Ahhhh, Sweet!

Goodness knows we can all use a dose of cool soothing balm on hot dusty days of the soul, so let me share it with you too.

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.


This is my place of still water.

If you can't take your body to a quiet place by still waters, then close your eyes and go there in your mind.
…do not tax your life with forethought of grief...come into the presence of still water…rest in the grace of the world…be free.


MMMMMM, doesn't that feel good?