Thursday, November 22, 2007

Serendipitous.

Someone posted Mary Oliver's The Summer Day on an online forum I frequent. I've been experiencing a bit of family drama recently so it fit my mood perfectly. And as I read it, I took it for what it should be, even if in reality it is just coincidence -- one of those weird karmic gifts. Thank you.

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?

1 comment:

prophet said...

oh wow. . . . how wonderful that is! THANK you. I've never read it.

(and I was just working with serendipity vs. synchronicity the other day. . . . made me smile to see you use the word).