September 27, 2023 – A

"The Peace of Wild Things" is a poem by Wendell Berry,
which I recommend highly,
but which is occasioned
by wild things' absence of anticipation
and remembrance.

The wild things that are hunted
have less peace,
I would think,
than the wild things 
that do the hunting,
but then,
everything is hunted by something,
and the more conscious anything is
of that,
the less peace it has
as a regular state of being,
wild or not.

Which makes peace a fleeting thing,
coming and going at a moment's notice,
incapable of hanging around
like poverty forever.

If peace had the staying power of poverty,
it would take the anguish 
out of being poor.
Or hunted.

But no.
Here it comes,
there it goes.

Peace like the wind
blows through our lives
as an irregular reminder
of what we don't have,
or have too much of,
regretting and dreading
through our days,
with an occasional respite
of peace like that of the lake above
oblivious to the moss growing beneath 
its surface
and the annual leaf fall filling 
it from above
until there is no room for water
to rest on its way to the sea,
which is coming,
hunting for it,
even as we speak,
challenging us to make our peace
with that
if we can.

Awakening us to the reality of peace
being more of a state of mind
than a state of being,
and asking us to be okay
with things as the are
even as they are changing,
transforming,
coming,
going,
which is the way of all things
like the rhythms of the tides
and the moon in its orbit,
and our way through our life,
whispering relentlessly,
"Let it be because it is,
and what would you do about it anyway
that has a chance at permanence
or even longevity?
So, let come what's coming
and let go what's going,
and make the best of what's what
here and now."

Making our peace with that
is all the peace we will ever have,
and all we need
to find what we need
to do what needs to be done
here and now
some more again
every day.

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