Matthew Henry John Bartlett

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Wednesday 26 May, 02004

Mary Oliver/The Summer Day

by Matthew Bartlett @ 11:55 pm

From Adbusters #45 (ALL READ ADBUSTERS):

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
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 enourmous 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?

4 responses to “Mary Oliver/The Summer Day”

  1. swell.
    thats cute.
    I am going to write an essay along these lines.

  2. richief says:

    i can’t help but imagine the grasshopper getting crushed by one of the author’s persona’s knees when he/she kneels in the grass. am i deranged? i think yes. sorry if i have ruined this post in some way.

  3. beth kapralian says:

    what the heck does this poem mean?

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