The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

1935 to 2019

Poem Image
Track 1

Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.

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Tell me, what is it you plan to do
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
with your one wild and precious life?
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Who made the world?
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
This grasshopper, I mean—
which is what I have been doing all day.
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Who made the grasshopper?
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?