A Favorite Poem

Dancer and I were talking a few days ago, and we were discussing how much I used to love writing poetry when I was younger.  I am finding at different times, I told her, that forgotten passion is calling out to me to pick it back up again. It happens when I am out in the woods for an early morning walk with one of the dogs.  It comes from just being and letting go of trying to move ahead as the day begins.  I try to stop the thoughts in my head from hurtling forward as I focus on the task of looking up through the trees and the ceiling of their leaves to view the expanse of sky beyond.  I try to pick out the last of the stars and the moon as the sky is turning pink with the new day.

"You should pick it back up again,"she says, between mouthfuls of munching her hay. I know I will, but it is something that will just happen, without any effort.  It will be something like riding a bike, it will just come back to me and it will be like I never stopped.  Dancer understands the concept of living in the moment.  And my lovely mother.  I struggle with practicing that everyday.

While I wait, I turn to some of my favorite authors for inspiration. And I continue to try to rest in a peaceful place at least once a day.  

Besides Atticus, there is Wendell Berry.  I love them both for many reasons,and one of the main ones with Berry is he is a farmer and conservationist.  You can check him out here: https://onbeing.org/blog/wendell-berry-the-peace-of-wild-things/

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair 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 for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. 

-Wendell Berry