I have just returned ‘home’
from a weekend visit ‘home.’ I have been in search of what ‘home’ means to me
now, this last month, in light of new marriage, new house, new community, new family, new name,
new job, and new path.
My visit back to the
familiar ‘home,’ from this place of newness, was very life giving. Familiar
family, friends, roads, stores, community, and conversations.
The return to the new ‘home’
was also incredibly life giving. There is no competition running, no helpful or
necessary comparison; pro and con lists fall by the wayside. New and familiar
both have their place. Both have their beauty.
One moment of beauty was
this morning as I watched two great white birds, slowly and certainly; make
their way across the waters of Moose Lake, the shore on which my new house is
situated. I would like to think they were herons although with my limited
knowledge (and eyesight) they could have been snow geese or pelicans.
The reason I want to suggest
herons is because of the following poem by Wendell Berry that was offered by a
familiar friend this past weekend, amidst conversation of life, love and other
mysteries. Did I lay my eyes on the great heron - I will allow a wishful indulgence in timely coincidence and dare to say 'maybe...just maybe.'
In all of my defining of
‘home’ and in all of my transitionary experiences, where beauty abounds, I
offer this poem as a glimpse into my soul, my heart and my mind…the peace of
wild things.
The Peace of Wild Things
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.
