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
The final two lines of this poem are its most well-known ones; they have been stitched into frames, tacked to mirrors, and more. They are lines that are well worth remembering. However, the poem's core is found a few lines earlier: Say, "Tell me, what else should I have done?" What more, specifically, is there to do besides "falling down in the grass, being idle and blessed, strolling through the fields all day?" This poem's central idea is a mini-revolution, a challenging question mark next to the accepted responses to the inquiry, "What makes for a day well lived?" How am I supposed to spend this "summer day"? I refer to the current summer day that we are experiencing. one in which we will reside tomorrow.
Oliver makes the possibly game-changing claim that we might need to reevaluate what a "productive day" entails. It might seem more like the straightforward, amazing process of getting to know a grasshopper than a day spent glued to devices, email, cleaning, errands, and getting things done. I mean this grasshopper. This poem may redouble our efforts to create a world in which everyone — everyone! — has the occasional time and space to stroll through the fields, "wild and precious," holding out a little sugar in our hand. If we keep in mind that not everyone today has the opportunity to take a day in the fields to be "idle and blessed."
