'To cherish the earth'

 

“To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.” –  Wendell Berry

 

In Thursday’s post I wrote about Berry’s many contributions to literature and the environment.  The author (who died Monday) created more than 50 books of fiction, essays and poetry – led by award-winning works like The Broken Ground and The Country of Marriage.  He wrote about the turning of the seasons, routines of the farm, life of the family, and the spiritual aspects of the natural world, urging mankind to live in harmony with the earth, or perish.

 

For Saturday’s Poem, from his Collected Poems: 1957-1982, 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.