Summertime

 It's summertime and at Prospect Gardens the beauty of this season is at its peak. Rather than say too much more, I will share the following Mary Oliver poem about summer and the opportunities the season provides for reflection.Enjoy the twelve pictures. Perhaps, as the summer continues to unfold, take time to reflect upon the question raised in Mary Oliver's poem.

The Summer Day: Mary Oliver

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 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 fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your own wild and precious life?