The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

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.

Female Wood Duck with brood, Sycamore Pool, Bidwell Park.

Great Blue Heron, feeding on fish, Chico Creek, One Mile, Bidwell Park.

Male and female Mallards, Chico Creek, Bidwell Park.

Black Phoebe, One Mile dam, Chico Creek.

All of the above birds, and more, live and breed on Chico Creek in Bidwell Park.  Long may they thrive.