Who made the world?
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?
~Mary Oliver from “The Summer Day”
But all the gardens
—let me yell for joy at what I have been given,
at the blessedness that I have been afforded,
at the long seasons of grace
you have spun out for me
in a great summer taffy of a life.
~A.G. Harmon from patheos.com
Do you know how the dream looms? how if summer
       misses one of us the two of us miss summer—
Summer when the lungs of the earth take a long
       breath for the change to low contralto singing
       mornings when the green corn leaves first break
       through the black loam—
And another long breath for the silver soprano melody
       of the moon songs in the light nights when the
       earth is lighter than a feather, the iron mountains
       lighter than a goose down—
So I shall look for you in the light nights then, in the
       laughter of slats of silver under a hill hickory.
In the listening tops of the hickories, in the wind
       motions of the hickory shingle leaves, in the
       imitations of slow sea water on the shingle silver
       in the wind—
I shall look for you.
~Carl Sandburg, “Silver Wind”
In case you weren’t up at 4:45 AM in the Pacific Northwest, wading in hip deep grass in your bathrobe…
Lightly it flew to the pleasant home
Of the flower most truly fair,
On Clover’s breast he softly lit,
And folded his bright wings there.
‘Dear flower,’ the butterfly whispered low,
‘Long hast thou waited for me;
Now I am come, and my grateful love
Shall brighten thy home for thee;
Thou hast loved and cared for me, when alone,
Hast watched o’er me long and well;
And now will I strive to show the thanks
The poor worm could not tell.
Sunbeam and breeze shall come to thee,
And the coolest dews that fall;
Whate’er a flower can wish is thine,
For thou art worthy all.
~Louisa May Alcott from “Clover-Blossom”
“When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields,
consider the orderliness of the world.
Notice something you have never noticed before…
Stare hard at the hummingbird, in the summer rain,
shaking the water-sparks from its wings.
A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life.
Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.
In the glare of your mind, be modest.
And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling.”
~Mary Oliver from “The Leaf and the Cloud”
For a bright and promising summer solstice morning:
Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,
then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?
…and if necessary, the windows—
trees fifty, a hundred years old
out there,
heavy clouds on the way
and the lawn steaming like a horse
in the early morning.
~Billy Collins from “Morning”
It is so still now, I hear the horse
Clear his nostrils.
He has crept out of the green places behind me.
Patient and affectionate, he reads over my shoulder
These words I have written.
He has lived a long time, and he loves to pretend
No one can see him.
Last night I paused at the edge of darkness,
And slept with green dew, alone.
I have come a long way, to surrender my shadow
To the shadow of a horse.
~James Wright from “Sitting in a small screenhouse on a summer morning”
Some of the most powerful memories of summer come out of our childhood when we wake up on a June morning and suddenly remember that school is out and that summer stretches in front of us as endlessly as the infinities of space. Everything is different. The old routines are gone. The relentless school bus isn’t coming. The bells will be silent in silent hallways. And all the world is leafy green, and will be green, forever and ever.
~Ray Bradbury
Barnstorming 