1 poem that may just change our life!

Mary Oliver makes us go hmmmm.....

Read this one twice...feel free to click on 'tools' and briefly write down your reaction in your journal.  

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-the one who 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?

Mary Oliver, ?The Summer Day?

Comments

 

friend08 said:

I love this poem....  What a wonderful reflection on impermanence.  She is such a wonderful poet... another favorite of mine that she also writes, "You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees through the desert for a hundred miles repenting.  You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. "

Thank you for sharing this:)

Amanda

August 7, 2008 5:38 PM

About Elisha Goldstein

Elisha is a practicing Psychologist teaching mindfulness workshops and seminars at multiple organizations across California. He is a Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher, published author, and speaker, including the Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Conference at UCLA headlining Thich Nhat Hanh, Jack Kornfield, and Daniel Siegel. You can check out his CDs on Mindful Solutions for Stress, Anxiety and Depression and Mindful Solutions for Addiction and Relapse Prevention at http://www.drsgoldstein.com .