A Poem of Comfort

Some days are too hard for words. This week has had several of them.  When I am heavy with the weight of the world, when sadness overcomes me, I turn to this poem for comfort.

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 I am free.

-Wendell Berry