The Summer Day
Mary Oliver
1935 to 2019
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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This grasshopper, I mean—
with your one wild and precious life?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Who made the world?
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
Who made the grasshopper?
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
Tell me, what else should I have done?