Mary Oliver is my favorite poet. An imaginative and reserved nature-lover, she spent many happy hours, notebook in hand, pondering the world through quiet observation of the trees and animals that surrounded her.
Like me, Oliver wasn’t much for the spotlight. She let her writing speak for her and it earned her great recognition. She’s a recipient of both the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Award, winning numerous other awards and honors throughout her whole life.
Oliver passed away earlier this year, but the over 30 poetry collections and works of non-fiction she published leave a legacy that will not soon be forgotten. Of her collections, A Thousand Mornings, Devotion, and House of Light (from which this poem is taken) are three of my favorite.
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?
Have you read any of Oliver’s poems? Which poets are your favorite? I’m always looking to add to my collection!
XO,
Micah
I think Mary Oliver would have found a kindred spirit in Anne of Green Gables.
“Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d go out into a great big field all alone or into the deep, deep, woods, and I’d look up into the sky–up–up–up–into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I’d just *feel* a prayer.”
Yes, I agree! Such lovely poetry.