Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
The One Who has flung herself out of the grass,
The One Who is eating sugar out of my hand,
Who is moving her jaws back and forth up and down INSTEAD OF "Who is gazing
around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
~ Mary Oliver in New and Selected Poems (Boston: Beacon Press) 1992
Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean
which has jumped from the grass
who is eating sugar out of my hand
moving his jaw from right to left instead of up and down
which looks around with eyes wide and complicated
Now lift your legs pale and washed his face
and stretch their wings and fly
I do not know exactly what a prayer
know how to look, how to fall
in the grass, how to kneel in her
how to be simple and blessed, how to roam the fields,
thing I've been doing all day
Tell me, what else can I do?
Finally, do not die all too quickly?
Tell me what you think
do with your one precious life? Mary Oliver
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