The Writer's Almanac

I subscribe to the podcast of Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac, where he gives a bit of history about writers and this day in literary history and then reads a poem. They're all fantastic, but I liked today's especially. The image is by one Paul living in London. It popped up on Google image search, and I loved it too much to not use it. You can see more of Paul's work at his Livejournal.



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 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?