Friday, June 02, 2006

A Poem From the Church Newsletter

This is so good. (Except it reminds me of my entomology class, and that was rather unpleasant...) By Mary Oliver.

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 thouroughly 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 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?


What is it that I plan to do? I would like to have a wild and precious life.
(I have to go help dig a grave for one of the sanctuary dogs tomorrow. That's one wild and precious life. Remember Nila, the sweet, beautiful yellow lab who never got adopted into a real home.)

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