Your Wild and Precious Life

A few years ago I did a wonderful day of letterpress printing at my friend Thea Sizemore's studio (Kavamore Press) in Oakland. I was a graphic designer for 15 years and absolutely love everything about letterpress printing — setting the type, mixing the ink, the physicality of cranking a Vandercook press, and the tactile nature of the final product. 

Thea asked that I bring some text to print and I instantly thought of this Mary Oliver quote. I’ve loved it ever since I first heard it. Whenever I come across this quote it takes me back to the fleeting preciousness of life. How, when we allow it to be, it can be glorious and filled with wonder.  When I hear this quote it makes me think about how I’m approaching my day. Am I just checking things off my list or am I tapping into something bigger? Getting things done is great, but sitting in a field in the sun can also be a perfect way to spend the day. 

Mary Oliver’s full poem The Summer Day is below. Enjoy.


The Summer Day
​
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?

- Mary Oliver