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.

Opening poem chosen and read by Amy W.

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A small window in a dark sky… Photo and reflection by Mieke K.

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Sometimes all we have is a single ray of light and that is enough. (Author unknown)

 

Sand Dollar Gift

This is what I found–

only half of it here,

but still… (Mieke Kampen)

 

Walked up the beach toward the jetty, wind at my back. Passed a banana peel lying on the sand, and I wondered: What does slipping on sand feel like? Is it even possible? Too much friction in those grains? Discarded, its purpose spent, the peel seemed resigned, maybe content, to lie there, waiting for the high tide to claim it. Hours would go by before that tide; the soft inner lining would dry, the outer skin would brown. Then it would be lifted, carried, tumbled through its last long-lasting chapter. Funny how, like us, it spends much more of its life ending than being formed.

Photo and reflections by Amy W.

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Photo by Nancy B.