I have parent-teacher interviews for the next two evenings. It limits the time available for posting my own words. I began thumbing through one of my many poetry anthologies and came across this wonderful Wendell Berry poem that echoed yesterday’s post, Children in ways. Two of his poems at the link are about mad farmers. Wendell Berry is a compassionate, opinionated person. When I grow up, I want to be similar.

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 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.