The Peace of Wild Thing

BY WENDELL BERRY

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.

i remember going to some kid theme park when i was young and getting off the train in a magical place where everything was small. you had to bend down (even as a chumpy kid) to get into tiny kitchens with the smallest mixing bowls, tiles the size of quarters, chairs so low you may as well been cross-legged on the ground, and windows only big enough for the smallest blue jay to perch. my hands swallowed everything i touched. it was incredible. this is something that had completely slipped my mind until i found myself in the avenue of the giants a few days ago.

i experienced a similar sensation as i did as a giant child in that land of shrunken door knobs, except this time i was getting swallowed up bigger things. i appreciate both experiences so much because they both change the perspective of my world in such a drastic way that they make all sorts of room for my imagination to do what it will. in this forest surrounded by these jurassic grandaddy trees, it did somersaults, heel clicks, and soared in between the light beams that penetrated the canopy and sprinkled leaves on our amazed noggins.