Yesterday was the first official day of the summer or Summer Solstice. I don’t know about you, but I LOVE summer. Long days, travel plans, beach, sun, ice cream, cool beers and lots of time outdoors with family and friends. What do you do for the summer? Do you like the summer or do you prefer another season?
In honor of summer, I thought I would share a little poem I recently came across (found) and I hope you enjoy it just as much as I do. Perhaps this is a good exercise to bring out the dictionary and add some new vocabulary to your word bank?
The Summer Day 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 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 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?
