The preciousness of life

My nephew-in-law used this poem recently to remember the life of a friend who had recently died. It is called The Summer Day by Mary Oliver* and I think it is a  poem about our choice to live life or to let it slip through our fingers. Here is an excerpt:


        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: New and Selected Poems, Beacon Press, Boston Mass. 1992