“To
cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only
legitimate hope of survival.” –
Wendell Berry
I wrote earlier this week about Kentuckian
Wendell Berry and his many contributions to literature and the environment. Critics and scholars have
acknowledged Berry as a master of many literary genres, but whether he is
writing poetry, fiction, or essays, his message is essentially the same: humans
must learn to live in harmony with the natural rhythms of the earth or perish.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiju3IcpNYIass4mxO71LyGiVAXK-NiMj6bk496OVd2llsEDVb3w7UiXALThqSEpDE6CINo06Xq2yHa6knJk6qNcM5zTOUpLr0MWq5Xz0x8OODC_KJlLzCXtk3J03YVnctgueKC7wIZXdgU/s400/th_004.jpg)
For Saturday’s Poem here is Berry’s,
The Peace of Wild Things
When
despair 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 for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
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 for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
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