What Do You Plan to do With Your One Precious Life?

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 not 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

Mary Oliver asks: “What do you plan to do with your one precious life?” This past week I visited the cemetery where my parents are buried. It is also where I used to play as a young child. I felt the memories of their well-lived lives, but I also sensed the “empty space.” I know they do not reside here. It was blustery and quite cold by the time we reached their graves. Like the grasshopper, I would have knelt in the grass, but it was covered with snow. As a child I often strolled through these fields and played in these woods. Now the woods are gone; they have been cleared for more graves. I looked across the hills and saw the backs of two of the houses we had lived in and thought how long ago that had been. Yes, “everything does die at last, and too soon”, but doesn’t everything have its moment in the sun? We had our share of sun-filled days as a young and growing family.

I said a prayer. “What else should I have done?” I remembered that they had lived good, hard-working, and humble lives. They had mentored and loved all of their children and grandchildren and now eight great- grandchildren — three girls and 5 boys were growing and healthy.

Before we drove off, we spotted a family of does, fawns, and then this one very stately stag. He looked at us with such pride and no fear.  Mary Oliver’s question loomed heavy in my mind: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” We– like the grasshopper– must learn “how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed.” I left feeling blessed and with a renewed resolve to pay attention to the rest of my “one, wild and precious life.”