The Peace of Feathered Things

THE PEACE OF FEATHERED THINGS

(in the way of 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 future and what the world’s future may be,

I go and hang out where the rooster

crows in all his beauty in the grass, and the hens peck around in the dirt.

I come into the peace of feathered things

who do not tax their lives with forethought 

of grief. I come into the presence of freshly-laid eggs.

And I feel above me the dusty cobwebs

clinging to the familiar ways. While I clean the coop,

I rest in the grace of the flock, and I am free.

~ inspired by a popular poem by Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things, published in his first collection of poetry in 1968 then reprinted in a collection in 1985.