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 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 exactly 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 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?
With thanks to Brian P, my retreat director, for sharing this.
photo: a summer sunday afternoon by adsj (washington square, nyc, july 2011)
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