This poem does not speak to what immediately terrorizes us today, which needs no “forethought of grief” to leave us grieving (even though it breeds such forethought). It is, however, a beautiful poem, by a wonderful poet, and I am glad that someone I do not know shared it on Facebook today and that someone I do know, by “liking” it, brought it into my world. (Thank you Deborah K.)

There are forces in nature that offer comfort, and insight, even when parts of human nature make us despair.

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.