Summer
June 23rd, 2008
It is now summer. Let us celebrate in two ways:
First, by song,
[audio:Summer.mp3]and then, by poem (this poem is amazing! the ending is so fierce!):
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?
Let us celebrate in a third way, with picture. I can smell the summertime in the photo above. Awesome
Agreed. Riding my bike through the park this morning they were mowing the lawn, and the smell of fresh cut grass hit so hard it was like Mjolnir. At some point I’m going to do a post about fresh cut grass…