Wendell Berry – Roadkill Crossing

An ally for all things wild, wonderful, and of nature died yesterday at his home in Port Royal, Kentucky. Wendell Berry was 92.

I didn’t know him personally, but a writer friend of mine did. Wendell even occasionally stayed in a cabin on my Amish friend’s farm in Holmes County, Ohio.

In honor of this great writer and activist for justice, I am posting his most noted poem, “The Peace of Wild Things.”

Rest in true peace, Wendell.

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.