Wendell Berry is one of my favourite poems. Today, I began reading Alan Watts’ The Wisdom of Insecurity, which was published in 1951. It could just have easily been published today and for today’s world. In the poem, Berry suggests nature is a place where we can find some solace. Here, we can live in the moment and find peace. Watts makes a similar case for living in the moment. It is there we fcan discover wisdom and insights into the world.
Wendell Berry, as do many other poets, understand nature as a place to dwell and be. This does not mean we have to leave in the country. There is beauty that surrounds us in large cities. Sometimes, we take that beauty for granted, but it is in the ordinary we discover the extraordinary.
Image Copyright 2017 by R.A. Robbins
“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
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
Thank you so much for reblogging this. I appreciate your insights into the poet and the poem.
You are welcome and thank you.
Beautiful.
Thank you David.
One of my favorites of his.
It is one of mine, as well.
I really like this, Ivon. I think I also saw this poem on your blog before, but I could be wrong.
Thank you Cynthia. You did, but I like it so much I shared it again.
Such places are evaporating at an astonishing rate.
Sadly, they are.
Almost everywhere there is a small park or a box of flowers to keep us in touch with nature.
There is and a park bench to sit and be part of that corner.
Want you to know how much I enjoy your posts and certainly appreciate you being a faithful follower of my Gypsy Road Trip blog. Thanks!
You are welcome. One cannot travel to all the places on earth, so a wonderful alternative is to follow blogs like yours that add to where I have been and not been. Thank you for your following and comments.
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