The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

(1935-2019)

This poem was submitted by Steph Clay as one her favorites. Steph is essential to Poetry Month from getting our Poetry Month supported by a website, to selecting images for each poem, to submitting wonderful poems like this one.

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?

From Steph Clay:

Ms. Oliver's challenge at the end, "What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" might seem daunting, even exasperating. You might think, "My life isn't wild or precious, my life just...is." I often throw my hands in the air out of frustration because of how much of life feels out of my control; I have no idea what I'm planning to do, Mary. Thanks for rubbing it in.

But I guess that's the thing with this poem; it reminds me of what I do know how to do—observe, pay attention, find the good, marvel at the magic (nature, children, etc.), and take it one moment at a time. As Anna says in Frozen II, "just do the next right thing." At least, I'm going to try...what about you? What will you do?

Listen to the poet recite The Summer Day.

Mary Jane Oliver was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. She found inspiration for her work in nature and had a lifelong habit of solitary walks in the wild. Her poetry is characterized by wonderment at the natural environment, vivid imagery, and unadorned language.