The 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 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,
how to look and look
with my whole self.
I could just imagine it as I walked through the fields last week,
a good solid farewell for that grasshopper.
Now I must ask the grasshopper, the great mystery of the world,
Day by day, from this moment on,
what should I do with my life?
What should I do with my day that is so precious?
I listen to her, and I believe in how to be here,
how to act as if every breath were a gift.

• Mary Oliver