Another Night Poem

The Want of Peace

by Wendell Berry 

All goes back to the earth,   

and so I do not desire

pride of excess or power,   

but the contentments made   

by men who have had little:   

the fisherman’s silence

receiving the river’s grace,

the gardener’s musing on rows.

I lack the peace of simple things.   

I am never wholly in place.

I find no peace or grace.

We sell the world to buy fire,

our way lighted by burning men,   

and that has bent my mind

and made me think of darkness

and wish for the dumb life of roots.

Wendell Berry, “The Want of Peace” from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. Copyright © 1998.