Air Date: Week of July 2, 1999

Farmer and writer Wendell Berry reads his poem, "The Peace of Wild Things."

Transcript

CURWOOD: Even from the highest point on his farm in the hills of Kentucky, writer Wendell Berry can't see the ocean, but he can still keep his ear to the natural world. He's been telling us about the experience in a series of poems. Here's another. It's called The Peace of Wild Things.

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.

CURWOOD: Wendell Berry, reading from his poem The Peace of Wild Things. You're listening to NPR's Living On Earth. I'm Steve Curwood.