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?
Reflection: This is a really good poem, maybe a great poem but what "ruined" it for me when I first read it or heard it (not being a Christian*), is the "Who" in the first few lines. If I changed it to what, it didn't bother me so much. But, now that I am less fanatic (less of a prick) when it comes to making room for other spiritual worldviews, I find that, if I can just overlook the "Who", which, as the first word in the poem, is capitalized, I begin to be won over by her use of "who" in the line about the grasshopper: "who has flung herself out of the grass". And then the grasshopper becomes the subject, not the "Who" of "Who" made the grasshopper. In other words, Mary (may I call her "Mary"?) has personalized creation by focusing in on the grasshopper as a "someone" that you can have a relationship with. Mary also identifies her as "she". So what Mary is doing in this poem is saying: I'm going to stick my neck out and identify creator as a "who" with the very first word of this poem, but follow me, because now I am going to introduce you to what the Native Americans refer to as "all my relations". (Back to me): If you don't have a relationship with creator, as a starting point, then, is it even possible to see an insect as a "someone", with a life? In other words, this poem is not about Mary Oliver being all Christian religious on us, it is about her helping us to animate the f*cking universe! Thank you Mary.
*As far as I know M Oliver would not have called herself a Christian. She was closer to a mystic but, if she saw herself as a mystic, I don't think she ever outed herself as one, so in my reading of this poem I am just taking her at her word, so to speak. She kept her mind open to possibilities, and I don't think her spirituality was anywhere fully articulated or sketched out. But when you identify the maker of the world as a Who, you have to know you are stepping on many toes. But who would I rather have step on that toe then she?
(Article changed on Apr 01, 2022 at 11:39 AM EDT)
(Article changed on Apr 02, 2022 at 7:37 AM EDT)
