Too Many "To Do's" - Saturday's Woes

Some days I feel overwhelmed and splintered by all I have agreed to perform.   The jobs on the “to do” list tower together to make a pile of guilt that rival the height of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

The birds are being noisy and demanding my attention.  My husband scattered rye seed on the back lawn yesterday and the doves and cardinals can’t get enough.  There are birds in the trees around me that I haven’t even met yet.

We moved the big iron table with its six chairs to a shady spot in the back yard this morning and I just discovered that it has a strong wifi signal from the house.  Maybe my new writing spot has been created.

Thank you, birds and trees and greenness for helping me to forget myself and my personal skyscraper for a while.

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

I'm preparing today for the gathering together of a new group of home school students at our home. I'm hoping to share some of the joy and art of my favorite people. Mary Oliver's poetry entered my life a few years ago. Her words speak deeply into my soul. I shared this poem earlier, but offer it again today.

The Summer Day

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?


~ Mary Oliver ~

(New and Selected Poems, Volume I)