For those of you who don’t cringe at the word “poetry” – as most of my students do (alas!)… here are some thoughts from a favorite poet of mine – all the more relevant in light of the recent Paris attacks:
To My Children, Fearing for Them
by Wendell BerryTerrors are to come. The earth
Is poisoned with narrow lives.
I think of you. What you will
Live through, or perish by, eats
At my heart. What have I done? I
Need better answers than there are.To pain of coming to see
What was done in blindness,
Loving what I cannot save. Nor,Your eyes turning toward me,
Can I wish your lives unmade
Though the pain of them is on me.
The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell BerryWhen 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.
gladly, beyond 
Indeed.
I love “The Peace of Wild Things”—I got to sing an arrangement of the text with a choir last fall and it was such a great experience! Here’s a recording of another group singing it—maybe you’ll enjoy it!
Love hearing your updates, Alan and Amanda!
-Katie
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Spiffy – thanks!
Beautiful poetry and befitting the circumstance…thank you much.
Mom’s friend, Karyn :)
It can always be said: This is the best of times and the worst of times…..Always look on the bright side and look for the beauty, potential and hope in everything. When things look particularly bleak, remember that over the long run, this too shall pass.