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Featured Poem: The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

Written by Francesca Dolan, 9th May 2022

Today's Featured Poem is 'The Peace of Wild Things' by Wendell Berry. It is read by The Reader's Shared Reading Partnerships and Programme Manager, Andrew, who explains that, like all the great poems, this one has meant different things to him at different 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.
by Wendell Berry

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