The Grace of the World
Photo by Elijah St. Amant As much of the world hunkers in lockdown, waiting out the coronavirus pandemic, I find my life has grown quieter and the small things--a garter snake in the iris patch, three turkey vultures poised on a neighbor's roof--have the power to sooth. That's why this poem seems perfect for this moment in history: 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 in their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world and am free. --Wendell Berry