Thursday, March 24, 2011

Paying Attention

Whether you're a runner, a yogi or neither the poem below is great for showing how even 
in the smallest of creatures we should be fascinated.
But first of all - we need to pay attention - and probably to ourselves first.
 
The poem inspiring us to pay attention, and see life as wild and precious is this one: 
(thanks go to my good friend Barry for bringing the entire poem to my attention)
 
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 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 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 
 


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