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The Peace of Wild Things

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.

-Wendell Berry, 1968

This is my last week in Saskatoon before I go home for winter break, which means I have the dubious pleasure of wrapping up a semester's worth of academics this week, with one exam, one poster presentation, and one thesis proposal. Not terrible, but vaguely intimidating.

This poem has long been a touchstone for me--I used to have the text of it in a virtual sticky note that I kept on my desktop at all times--but especially at times like this. I once read it repeatedly in preparation for a presentation instead of preparing for the presentation in any tangible way, and since then it's something I've come back to, time and again, when resting in the grace of the world would serve me better than clutching at the stones of my worries and turning them over and over in my mind.

And, on the topic of wild things, an update on the cranelings of yore: this photostream on flickr has several pictures of 'my' chicks. Any bird numbered 18 through 28-10 is one of ours.