Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets, and it is to this poem -- The Summer Day -- that I so often turn these days for the question it poses: Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
This is my challenge these days. I believe that the road ahead is filled with wild and precious encounters, and it is my task to recognize and live into those moments. Blessedly, I have many companions on this path, most of us with children grown and leaving the nest, some of us with careers winding down; others, like me, eager to embrace new work. My mother never spoke to even her closest friends about the matters that weighed heavily on her, and so empty nests, divorces, menopause, and illness were swept under the rug. She and her friends believed that personal issues were best held close in fear of losing face. I feel so lucky to have friends and family accompany me on this leg of the journey.
The Summer Day
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?T
ell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver ~(New and Selected Poems, Volume I)
No comments:
Post a Comment