"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." TS Eliot

Monday, March 14, 2011

Day 6

Today was hard.  I was too helpless in the face of all the horrible news.  I was not centered and had too few laughs.  I came home from work around 730 and still had to put the kids to bed and figure out what to eat.  blah blah blah.  But the walk still needed to happen.  In all honesty I didn't make it the full hour.  43 minutes 3,693 steps. 

This poem helps me so I thought I 'd share it
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?

2 comments:

  1. 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.

    that is all that each of us can ask of each day lady. So long as you remember how to kneel down, seems you have it covered. Love you.

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  2. Thank you for the poem. I am in love with it!

    ReplyDelete