Idle and Blessed: July 2008

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 downinto 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?

from New and Selected Poems, 1992Beacon Press, Boston, MA
Copyright 1992 by Mary Oliver.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Here comes the flower girl

Idle and Blessed

The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver

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