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 my 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.

* One Hundred Graces, as selected by Marcia and Jack Kelly (Bell Tower: New York, 1992)

An owl in the trees, Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden, Vancouver, British Columbia

Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver, British Columbia

Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver, British Columbia

Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver, British Columbia