Forethought of Grief

This phrase jumped out at me the other day when I was reading a poem by Wendell Berry titled, The Peace of Wild Things. It really made it clear to me that worrying about the future or ‘borrowing trouble’ is so unnecessary, although it is easy for me to get in the habit of doing just that. Just one of those little ‘aha’ moments, I guess. What ‘aha’ moment have you had lately?

Here’s the whole poem:

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 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 the day – blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.