By Erik Rittenberry at Poetic Outlaws: I march on. The soil is soft and sandy beneath my feet. I walk along beneath the ancient oaks that stand with dignity as the dripping moss sways in the morning breeze. So far, I haven’t seen another human out here. I’m alone, and an unimaginable peace sweeps over me. I recite the words of Wordsworth to myself as I float along:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
……………………………………….
The sky is radiant and the trees are silent. There’s a man fishing from a small skiff floating down the river. After a leisurely, do-nothing morning, I finally pack up my camp, shoulder my pack once again, and make my way back to the heartland of hustle. Mr. Wendell Berry, guide me home.
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.
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