The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver
Who made this world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
The 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 do you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
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Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there ~ Rumi
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