Largely

It was my husband's birthday yesterday.  The kids came over and we have dinner and a cake from Dairy Queen.  We all played outside for a while and then the kids went home.  A friend of Joe's came over to watch the Blackhawks beat Vancouver, which was awesome by the way.  Birthdays around here are pretty different than what I was used to, and I'm okay with that.  Change is good.  Another year just isn't what it used to be...

Today I am largely uninspired.  Nothing is nudging me forward, there is no anticipation, nothing really waiting for me.  Tasks, yes.  Fulfilling tasks, no.  So on this day of moment to momentness, here is s poem that let's me be okay in that.

The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver

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?

Thanks for sharing the whole thing Leanna.  I needed it today.  It feels like a Monday or something.  I've also been thinking about this (click on "this."  I know it's hard to see the hyperlinks on this blog.  I'm working on it.)  Want to do it, don't know if I can, or why exactly, or for whom.  Input?