The peace of wild things

Wendell Berry, poet, author, activist, humanist, environmentalist, and a lot of other things, has died at the age of 92. He lived a life of commitment to community and place. He lived a good life.

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 (1934-2026).

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