The Summer Day by Mary Oliver
Edition five
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 'The Summer Day' from House of Light (1990).
I was originally introduced to Mary Oliver’s poetry after listening to her 2015 interview with one of my favourite voices, Krista Tippett, on the On Being podcast. You can listen to the unedited interview on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you would like to read more poetry by Mary Oliver I recommend Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver. It is a book that I return to over and over.
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