Shalom Aleichem, Peace Be To You

​In this photo I am standing in our swim spa, looking over the Ojai mountains, glowing pink in the setting sun. My cat and I, together, as above me the day-blind stars begin to twinkle. And for this moment, there is peace. 
 
~
 
In very rare moments, writing eludes me. The thoughts are inside me—the feelings ring true and clear nestled in my heart and dancing across my brow.
 
And then I go to write them out of me and onto the page.
 
And they elude me.
 
My words. My words that move in me, they do not want to move onto the page.
 
And so, I think, do I just not share here today? Even though I feel this call to share here today.
 
And then I remember this poem—The Peace of Wild Things. 
 
This beautiful poem by Wendell Berry. And I think—oh, here are words that could be my words but different so. 
 
And so, The Peace of Wild Things. A poem by Wendell Berry.
 
Shalom Aleichem. Peace be to you.
 
~
 
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.
 
~Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things