Happy 40th Birthday Earth Day!
I woke up yesterday thinking about all of the folks who have helped mold and shape how I feel about the Earth and nature and flowers: my gram, my Master Gardening friends, Kathy York, Marina…John Muir, Rachel Carson, Annie Dillard, Amy Stewart EO Wilson, …
I took time to read Mary Oliver.
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 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?
And then I went and visited farmers and picked up flowers. Some of the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen.
Poppies
Gerber Daisies
Sweet Peas
Everyday is Earth Day! Enjoy it!
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