I was a Mary Oliver skeptic for a long time. The first time I read “The Summer Day,” with its lines about feeding sugar to grasshoppers and considering your “one wild and precious life,” I found it preposterously sentimental. At the time, I resented being told it was more honorable to spend my time strolling through fields and hand-feeding bugs than to pursue my preferred activities of browsing library bookshelves and hovering over record store discount bins.
Then, a few years ago, I was helping my uncle water his garden when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. There, balanced on a hosta leaf, was the biggest grasshopper I’d ever seen, about the size of a field mouse. I knew, without a doubt, God had made that grasshopper. More than anything, I wanted to feed it some sugar. That was the moment Oliver’s poetry finally clicked for me—a divine nudge to notice the world’s natural beauty and its intricate systems.
Read the Full Article
