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.
Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things” from
The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry.
This week of all weeks, I found myself so resonating with Wendell Berry’s lovely poem as it provided grounding and comfort. It helped to put all that was happening a little bit more in perspective and provided a back drop for my hike with friends Cynthia and Sheila as we hiked to Lac Richard I’d been wanting to hike this trail for a while as it is one of the few trails I’ve not been on. This part of the park is not as heavily used as the central part, being further to the west off the Eardley-Masham Rd., so is not being serviced much by the NCC: the yurt that used to exist by the shore of the lake was moved last year to the Lac Philippe area and we could see evidence of trail maintenance being ignored. It was a delightful outing as we clambered over numerous fallen trees on the path, crossed a beaver dam, did some bushwhacking to the end of the lake for our picnic lunch and hiked some unofficial trails toward Lac Racine. I can still feel the peacefulness in my body as we sat by the lake feeling the sensation of the wind on our faces. A little bit of the peace of the wild brought back to the city.