I called in sick to work today. For some reason I was just tired of going to work. I was tired of being in charge, but not really being in charge. People line up outside my office with problems to share, or call me with complaints. My boss, bless his heart, is a kind and understanding man, but that makes it harder for me when I disappoint him. Sometimes he must think I'm crazy the way I send poetry out to him and my group via email. (And they are always very politically correct poems, too. I hide the edgiest ones so as not to offend anyone.)
So I spent the day doing as little as possible. I let the cats in and out, and fed the birds, and chased the squirrels away from the bird feeder.
I'll be back at work tomorrow, hopefully hanging on to some of the peace of today.
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in 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
