In my corner of the vineyard, yesterday was the first in 2019 that felt, indeed, like a summer's day: sunny, blue skies, temps in the high 80's. I know that my readers south of the equator are having a different experience, but here on the Cape - summer has arrived!
Below is the text of Oliver's poem and you can hear her read it in the video above. She raises the question of what it means to pray - and a second question: what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
The 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 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?
- Mary Oliver
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| Image by Musical Photo Man |
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and PRAY before you think!