The Peace of Wild Things

Program Notes:

The exquisite words of American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer, Wendell Berry are beautifully amplified through this original 2004 composition by Portland-based composer Szymko.

Conductor Notes:

This beautiful work speaks compellingly to choir and audience in the unfolding of Berry’s poem. Since performing it as a massed choir selected at our Tapestry International Celebration of Women’s Choirs in 2012, we have gone on to include this in several concerts and tours. I would not program it where the piano is not in excellent shape, as the rich piano tone lives and supports the tone frequently in the low register.

Text:

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 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.