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—
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
A few bits of summer on this very November-y day, because while there is a new year on the horizon — sure to be full of sparkling ginger cookies, new moons, cranberry upside-down cakes, and all sorts of roasted vegetables and walks by the sea — it’s good to have a reminder that what I consider to be the sweetest season isn’t too far off.
What do you love most about summer?
I love everything about summer except that it ends.
Fresh berries, the smell of cut grass, long evenings and warm mornings, salty skin from the beach, wearing flip-flops for three months straight, visiting and visitors, etc. Whoa, where am I? You had me dreaming for a second.
oh, mary oliver. sigh.
i’m so invested in loving fall right now that it’s hard to remember why i love summer so much… but i’m going to go with iced coffee. and phippsburg.