Looking Forward

I was supposed to be on the road today. Figured I'd get up at 5:00 AM, pack the car, and head to Inlet for my fall season. That plan went to hell when the torrential downpour (that lasted an hour!) and lightning storm began at 4:45. As I lay in bed it occurred to me that I could stay here one more day and get a head start on my materials for the next two workshops. So here I am...

I came across this poem by Mary Oliver last night. It reminded me immediately of Nancy Rotenberg. It also makes me ponder my own uncertain future. It is a wake-up call to us in our muddling through life...


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?