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