Precious

Weekly Challenges

dew drops on green stem

Precious

Deadline

Read Poet Mary Oliver's famous poem, "The Summer Day," and respond to her question, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

"The summer day"


The Summer Day

By Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

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?

 

Submissions

  • Life Plans

    A single spark, a fleeting breath, 

    This wild, precious life, defying death. 

    I'll chase the sun on windswept shore, 

    And seek the truths I can't ignore. 

     

  • Everything

    I have the chance to do anything

    not quite everything

    but many things

    and I don't know what I want to do.

    I could be a writer

    or start my own company

    or be an Einstein-level mathematician

  • Plan to Dream

    With my one and only life,

    I plan to think and dream,

    no matter if my ideas are rife,

    no matter how extreme.

    I’ll climb the highest mountain,

    figurative or real.

    My dreams, I‘ll keep on countin’,

  • Dreamers

    and they're all breathless 

    telling me of the doctors who defied odds and 

    the athletes who destroyed records and 

    the CEOs and chefs and 

    and what if, 

    yes I think they're cool and