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
I first came across the last two lines of this poem before I knew that there was an entire poem in front of them. This poem is from Mary Oliver's House of Light collection. I've since purchased several volumes of her poetry and am savoring them as I read them. So much of what she writes about is a reminder for us to be truly mindful (before it became a trendy word), to be present in our own lives. She wants us to pay attention to our own life and the life around us--insects, birds, fish, small animals and large animals. In some of her other poems she even wonders about what stones feel and think. I love that.
In this poem, her way of praying is to pay attention, to fall and kneel in the grass, to be idle and blessed, even though she isn't really sure what a prayer is. But what is prayer if not this? She cultivated the ability to 'wonder', to be surprised by and grateful for nature at every turn. 'Wonder' is defined as 'a feeling of amazement and admiration, caused by something beautiful, remarkable, or unfamiliar'. It is the wonder we experienced as children when we came across something beautiful or unfamiliar. I know I felt wonder when I as a child looked at the underside of fern fronds and saw spores, which are the ferns' method of reproduction, or when we went on a field trip and went looking for moss's reproductive structures. Or observed lichen growing on a rock. Or when we collected leaves from different trees in the autumn. Or when we saw snow-laden branches on a fir tree, how beautiful they looked, or ice formations in small brooks and even on the Hudson River. I knew wonder when my father and I sat at his desk in the evening with the small microscope he and my mother bought for me, and we looked at the already-prepared slides of diatoms (single-celled algae) that came with the microscope set. So amazing to see these magnified tiny organisms that make their home in sea water and fresh water.
I think if we retain our ability to wonder throughout our lives, we will be able to tap into our 'child lives'. Not childish or silly lives, but rather lives that are open to the world. A kind of purity of soul, uncontaminated by the negativity and evil around us. Innocent as it were. It's not easy. But if we say no to cynicism and negativity, we leave more room for wonder. It's a good start.
