The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
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
A lot of bad things have been happening lately to people I know. Death. Illness, physical and mental. Senseless violence. Unemployment. Political intolerance. Some days, it feels hard to breathe with the weight of all this sadness, and the concept of grace seems a myth.
That's why our trip to the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center on Sunday was such a blessing. For a few moments, we lived wholly in the present, conscious of nothing but the "wild things" beside us.
