Sunday 17 July 2022

Thought provoking!

 

Just by chance I've come across poems by Mary Oliver.

The last lines of this one really hit home, and I stopped to think what
have I done with my 'wild and precious life'? 
I can't say at this moment in time, it needs some thinking time.


''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?

Thought provoking? I'll get back to this on another day, perhaps. What about you?

Chrisxx

4 comments:

Poppypatchwork said...

Love it

Eileen H said...

I like that poem, it is lovely and makes you think.

Joy said...

We're so tuned to 'being useful', aren't we. I loved the phrase 'Idle and blessed' too.
Thanks - very thought provoking.
xx

Jo said...

Yes, it does make you think.