It has been a gorgeous summer week in New England where I live and I thought I'd share one of my favorite nature poems, by one of my favorite New England based poets, Mary Oliver. She was such a force of poetic beauty and energy, always invoking the sacredness of Nature. I love to share her poems with other outdoor enthusiasts. This is one of her very well-known poems, and one that sparked my love for and connection with the outdoors.
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?
-Mary Oliver
I've always envied animals, including grasshoppers. "Free as a bird" as they say. As long as you are predator instead of prey, that is.