The Peace of Wild Things

I go among the trees and sit still. All my stirring becomes quiet around me like circles on a stone pond. I detect the boisterous waters, the way things lick with unashamed ease.

Here, the wild things cannot reach, their song is the delicate response of the flesh and soul, the sacred place where I dance beneath the clouds, where I am no less alive as is the quietness. The quiet amazes me! As if some wind always blows around me, as if someone by divine design had just slipped the confines of unkindness and poured out a cup of joy— I have snatched like a dear friend. Wild things become wings for me— of the hungering of a heart, beyond limits, so deep unto it I rise, like shining stars of hope—a shining arena where the heart steps without opening the door.

And when it’s time to return, I come back ready— bird and air and soft, warming wind know just why I have come! And I rise to meet the world, wondering, and yet feeling it aeons adorned all around me, in a life where love can dance.

I find the wild and quiet there—they usher it back, showing me there is peace knowing I need not reach for it. It is a gift, this wild being alive, full of clarity, filling this world with love.

• Mary Oliver