The Summer Day

As someone who usually rolls her eyes when a poetry section is announced, I was surprised by the connection I felt to "The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver. This poem deals with many different topics, all of which revolve around life. The author raises questions of creation, death, prayer, and talks of how to best live her life. I like how she focuses on more than simply human life, but she asks who made the world, the swan, the black bear, and then concentrates on the grasshopper. Mary Oliver uses diction to personify the grasshopper on page 737, "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 winds open, and floats away." That part made me feel as though the grasshopper was more than an insect, but something that has a life to fulfill as much as any human being. This poem just flows so naturally, it places the reader right next to Mary Oliver as she observes all of these things. I found myself wondering right along with her, because I too have so many unanswered questions. The most amazing part to me was the end lines, "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?" I couldn't help thinking that Mary Oliver was spot on when she called this life precious and wild, and that her wisdom probably comes from her connection to the world around her.