I often worry what our country…our world will be like in the coming years. I worry about global warming, the environment, our economy, war, terrorism, famine and disease. I worry for my daughter and her generation—and for future generations. What helps to keep me sane is laughter, which I find to be a great catharsis. That’s why I love watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
In the following poem, Wendell Berry provides us with another suggestion for helping to forget—at least for a time—things that trouble our thoughts.
From 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.
You can read the rest of the poem here at American Life in Poetry.
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At Wild Rose Reader, I have an original fairy tale poem entitled A Charming Prince Has Second Thoughts.
Karen Edmisten has the Poetry Friday Roundup today.
12 comments:
I just added his book Timbered Choir to my wishlist earlier this week after reading another of his poems in The Writer's Alamanac.
Thank you for posting this!
Kelly,
Thanks for the title. I'm always looking for new poetry books to add to my collection.
Ah, I love this poem. It somehow takes me to where the poet was, no matter where I am, and I sort of unkink mentally.
Tadmack,
Listening to the sound of the ocean breaking on the shore or of a bubbling mountain brook does the same thing for me.
Ahh....thank you. Good reminder.
Mary Lee,
I find I can lose myself in poetry at difficult times, too.
"And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light."
These lines are so comforting to me. It seems the stars are in much demand this poetry friday, with so many posts in reference to them! I am taking that as a message for me to look up.
Cloudscome?
Does this mean that we'll be seeing some photographs of the stars/sky at A Wrung Sponge?
I love this poem.
Karen,
I do too. It's the kind of poem I can read over and over again.
Thank you, Elaine. I needed this poem this morning.
Laura,
I find reading poetry helps me at certain times in my life. hope all is well.
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