IN PRAISE OF THE WINTER SOLSTICE, A POEM BY WENDELL BERRY

In praise of the Winter Solstice and to drive away the dark, we offer this poem by Wendell Berry, visionary, environmental activist, farmer and one of the major literary lights in our country.

Peace of the Wild Things

  

                              by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me

and I wake in the middle of 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.