The Summer Day
Mary Oliver (1935 – 2019)

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?

news

We have been under no illusions. We recognised from the start that America has changed.

Our government understood, before many, that America would transform all its commercial relationships. That it would put a series of tariffs on its closest allies and use economic integration as a weapon. That its signature was written in pencil.

notes

capitalism is essentially a destruction of earth with all new machines built. both coal and oil are digged out and burnt. both forest and ocean are harvested till the point of lifeless, far and near. the air polluted. climate changed. glacier and iceberg melted. when the earth is collapsed, it is the doom day for human being.

constant craving, 1992: Even through the darkest phase\ Be it thick or thin\ Always someone marches brave\ Here beneath my skin\ Maybe a great magnet pulls\ All souls towards truth\ Or maybe it is life itself\ Feeds wisdom to its youth

miss chatelaine, 1992: Just a kiss, just a kiss\ I have lived just for this\ I can’t explain why I’ve become\ Miss Chatelaine\ Just a smile, just a smile\ Hold me captive just a while\ I can’t explain why I’ve become\ Miss Chatelaine

he warned that stupidity is more dangerous than evil because the stupidity don’t think for themselves, blindly follow propaganda, and feel righteous while causing harm… his point: societies collapse not only from the wicked, but from ordinary people.

The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart. – Things fall apart

There is no story that is not true. – Things fall apart

Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am - and what I need - is something I have to find out myself. – Chinua Achebe

Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. – Chinua Achebe

“Cut off from every root, unfit, moreover, to mix with dust or mud, we have achieved the feat of breaking not only with the depths of things, but with their very surface. Civilization, at this stage, would seem to be a bargain with the Devil, if man still had a soul to sell.”