The Summer Day by 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?
Happy Summer Solstice, the first day of summer.
As I searched for a poem for you to celebrate Mary Oliver's poem just seemed to work. It fits with my last post too. Did you notice when the sun went down last evening and when it rose this morning? I snapped two pictures for you. One is as the sun was going down shortly after 9PM and then this morning as the sun sent shadows across this same spot in my garden. The sun was up quite early and I tried to ignore it, but finally it said "time to get up" and see the sun.
The long days of summer are here.
Let's savor the days and the light.
Take it in and hold it tight.
I find the warm days slows me down and I want to just sit under a shady tree and read or maybe nap.
Summer is the word this week. Savor and Delight in it.
