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?
My sister read this at my moms funeral and it will always be connected to her me my sister and Mary Oliver. Love when it come to me in unexpected ways.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, i do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow;
I am the diamond glints on snow;
I am sunlight ripened on grain;
I am the gentle autumn rain;
When you awake and greet the dawn
I am the day as it is born;
I am birds in circling flight;
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there. I did not die.
-Clare Harner