peace in the wild things

“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 with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

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I wake in the night

Despair for the world creeping, seeping, into my soul

Despair over children caged

Despair over men with power, saying that rape doesn’t matter

Despair over men of “faith” supporting the unsupportable

Despair that my beloved country has lost its moral compass

That money is more important that people

And more important than the earth

Despair over a church that would exclude anyone

In spite of the fact that those it claims to follow, welcomed everyone

Despair over my own tiredness

And the difficulty of getting, creatively, through one more day

Despair because I see no way forward for people of color

Or immigrants

Or women

Or children

Our nation is filled with fear and hate

Greed and grasping

Old white men with dead eyes, lying

Or proving through their words, that their hearts and souls have grown small

So small

Today the woods call

Time for a hike into the true

Along the winding waters

Up to where the cool winds blow

And the eagles soar

But today there is no peace in the wild things

Only the noise of dead souls talking

And so I cannot rise

Not in this moment

But dogs must be walked

And the sun still shines

And the stars will come out

And the coyotes will laugh

So who knows?

Perhaps, perhaps

God is after all

All about resurrection