This week, against the swirl of violence and dread, I am reminded (again) to pause.

In The Peace of Wild Things, Wendell Berry urges us to find a center and stay tender. Though written in 1968, with the backdrop of Vietnam, the poem holds power and resonance today.

Have we ever not needed sanctuary?

Here we are again.

Through bombs and invasion, through scattering and squall, let us hold steady. Let’s keep making: poems, painting, pottery, pie, stories, songs, soup . . . it’s what we know and can hold. It’s what can get us through.

With a nod to Berry, here’s my own wild peace:

STAY TENDER

Once or twice or ten times, in a tangle

of blackberries, my body deep in brush,

arms scratched and bleeding,

I have found sweetness

in the wild things.

This world, untamed and sometimes cruel,

can surprise with a blessing of unexpected beauty.

On a trail deep into desert

I have met an emptiness

so full everything else falls away.

In the cardón cactus holding old stories.

In the mesquite tree with deep roots and tiny thorns.

In the thistle and gnarl of a barren land quiet and alive.

It is a grace given, I think, to enter these wild places.

And if we are careful, it is a tenderness we take with us

when we return to the world that roars.

Against rushing needs and coarse demands,

I carry with me the memory of suncup,

the bright yellow flowers dotting

our dry heat-beaten earth.

— Drew Myron