Tuesday, August 24, 2010

long hot days of summer

Here is a lovely picture of a dragonfly kickin' it on a dead stalk of sunflower. We love all of the insects who visit our garden- well, maybe not ALL insects- but beneficial insect who help play an important role in the health of our crops- whether they be pollinators or predators who feed on the pests who eat our plants....
We don't particularly love grasshoppers- they're ferocious eaters who have been found nibbling many a dino kale leaf, or other such delicious greens we enjoy dining on ourselves.....
That said- I feel compelled to share one of my favorite poems with you by Mary Oliver called "The Summer Day"- it's about more than grasshoppers- it's also about wonder, and courage and tenderness....

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
The grasshopper, I mean-
The one who has flung herself on the grass,
Who is mobbing 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 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?

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