One Wild and Precious Life

A bouquet of hydrangeas, freshly picked from LaMama's garden.

LaMama's hydrangeas are in spectacular bloom right now. With all the rain we've had this year, they are the prettiest I ever remember seeing them. I think most, if not all, of LaMama's hydrangeas came from McCorkle Nurseries, where I worked for over a decade. Seems like every time I made a trip to the farm I would come home with a truck full of plants, and many of them ended up in LaMama's yard. My former garden on Lamont Drive in Decatur is also a tribute to that phase of my life. I drove by it the other day on my way to visit the Stelten boys; the Blushing Bride hydrangeas I planted were fantastic set against a backdrop of Ever Red loropetalums. Overall, the garden I created there looked happy and well-kept, but I didn't stare too long, lest I slip into a melancholy state. I'm glad the current owners are maintaining what I worked so hard to create over the years. That makes me happy.


Thanks to my friend, Becky, I have discovered poet, Mary Oliver. How could I have gotten to this point in my life and not have appreciated her work? I guess that's because NOW is the time. I just read her poem called, "The Summer Day." I've read it before, but it really spoke to me today. I hope you enjoy it too.

Wishing you well.
~Pat


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?

from New and Selected Poems, 1992
Beacon Press, Boston, MA

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