Gem Lake

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,

The trail

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.

Crystal clear and ice cold

Aspen leaves on juniper

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