Inside The Hearts' Walls

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?

--------------------

The summer days are coming at last, we can't hold them back. And that means our season of poetry clubbing has come to an end. Don't forget about the book signing on Thursday at 3:00 in the atrium of North Santiam Hall. It will be the final Poetry Club event of the year.

I want to thank everyone for the prompts, the personal feelings and ideas shared, the inspirations, the encouragement.  I only wrote because you asked me to. I only promised that I would try. And in trying to write, I was forced to figure out whether or not I had anything worth saying. And I discovered that I did.

I was wrong last time. Whitney has one last prompt for us. It comes from the Mary Oliver poem above.

"What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

That's your prompt for next year.
That's your prompt for the rest of your life.

Thanks Whitney. You were a really good poet laureate for us.