Sunday 26 June 2011

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

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 instead of up and down-
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?


What images and thoughts come to mind when you read the above poem?

3 comments:

  1. I think of a nice warm summer day on my grandparents porch with the bees buzzing and butterflys flittering around. Then I see a green grasshopper in my hands eating sugar and then flying away.
    Lindsay

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  2. That sounds nice Lindsay.
    Mrs. O'Hara

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  3. I think of me lying on the grass at my grandparents house playing with rocks and sticks. I imagine seeing grasshoppers at a distance with my eyes looking through the blades of grass. I also think of me sitting at home, enjoying all the good things in my life.
    Olivia

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