Last week, I came across two social media posts in as many days that mentioned Wendell Berry. I didn’t know who he was so looked him up and learned he’s a writer, among other things. The search also showed one of his poems, “The Peace of Wild Things.” In reading it, I realized I had heard it recently in a podcast, the speaker reciting it to himself during his anxiety attacks.
Berry writes about waking in the night with fear (with nightmares lately, for me) and going out into nature:
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.
“…forethought of grief…”
Wow, does that resonate.
All the “what-ifs” that give me a pit in my stomach.