Peace in the Midst of No Peace

The 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center is this weekend. There will be many reflections and many retrospectives from many different points of view. I’m offering the perspective of American poet, environmental activist, and farmer, Wendell Berry.

The Peace of Wild Things was written in 1968, as turbulent a time in American history as we are living through now, as we lived through 20 years ago. May you, too, find peace of mind and heart in despairing times.

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