The Peace of Wild Things

I go among the trees and sit still.
All my thoughts,
my worries
about the world,
fall away like the leaves
from the branches.
I watch as the winds fill
the spaces for a moment,
hear the birds sing
sweetly in the branches,
and feel the peace of wild things—
the grass that bows and stretches,
the shadows lengthening down the path.
It is in this moment
that I remember:
there is not just the chaos;
there is also this giant world,
and in the quiet, I belong.

• Mary Oliver