Poetry Friday -- Happy Birthday, Mom!

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?

My mom has had a long and wild and precious life. Yesterday we celebrated her 84th year. For the past two weeks I've been home, and we've been celebrating (in no particular order) a life of 

sewing, 

needlework, 

child-rearing, 

being the clerk of the course for swim meets, 

teaching, 

leading local women's clubs, and brownies, and cub scouts,

failing at scrap-booking (oh, well!), 

gardening, 

collecting dolls and figurines and miniatures and iris (even raising some from seed), 

cooking, 

bridge-playing,

reading,

editing,

being a cat fancier,

Colorado I-70 driving (Burlington to Denver and back again countless times),

iPad gaming,

and always and forever being curious and willing to learn and try new things.

Happy Birthday, Mom! 

Thanks for making me who I am today!

Jone has the round up today at Check It Out, and there are still a few slots left in the July-December round up host schedule I started last week.