Mary Oliver’s Summer Day - for the solstice
To celebrate the Summer Solstice, which takes place this weekend, I’m sharing one of my beloved Mary Oliver’s most well-loved poems: 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?
Paying attention is a theme in Mary Oliver’s work, and is very important in my work (and life generally). Seasonal celebrations, such as the summer solstice, invite us to pause and notice where we are on the wheel of the year; to pay attention to what is going on in nature and in our own minds and hearts. The last two lines of this poem, possibly Oliver’s most famous, pack a real existential punch as we are reminded we are mortal and that our lives are to be cherished and valued. Mary asks us to consider what’s important, at this peak of light and energy, but she is not suggesting we add more to the to-do list - quite the opposite. That perhaps a “blessed” life is one in which we’ve paid attention, rather than been productive.
How did this poem make you feel?
Consider that your life is “wild and precious” - how can you honour this?
