poetry

I was recently reminded, by katel, that i tend to think of myself as bad a poetry. something i am not always able to see the depth in. but then this blog by a nun that i really like referenced the below poem by mary oliver. during one of the first few months i spent in boston, i had the chance to hear mary read some of her poetry and talk a little bit about a collection that was being released at that time. it was just lovely. lovely.

she talked about these acres of woods she has behind her house. she wanders back there a lot (maybe she was wandering there when she wrote the below poem?). scattered throughout the trees, she has pencils stubbed in trees. just there. ready for her to have a good idea. because, she said, you have a good idea and it might leave you.

its this thing! where do good ideas come from? so often i feel like they come out of nowhere...like i can't trace them back to their origin. and if i don't write something down or don't take the time right then and there to think it through, it's going to leave me. this feeling like i have to grasp at an idea...like there really is no ownership over ideas.

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?
--Mary Oliver