the deepening ground

Midsummer passed without much fanfare. Yet for me, it’s a harbinger of late summer and the beginning of another school year. Like nearly every summer, the days flit by without much structure, despite attempts to bring order to the wonderful chaos, and now I begin to feel that growing sense of unpreparedness. I haven’t even been as creative as I’d hoped to be, struggling to write primarily because I haven’t given myself the time to do so (although I did get my music back up on Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, and other music sites). Which leads to this post…

Without anything new to post of my own (I’m currently working on another constellation song), I went to my library this morning and pulled Mary Oliver’s Why I Wake Early from the shelf. Randomly I opened the thin volume to this poem. The original owner of the book had underlined a few lines in the fourth and fifth stanzas. And then I saw the poem references “the middle of summer.” A perfect fit for today and a tender reminder in the Luna Moth to savor those “few precious hours” we have and that “everything that needs to be done / [will be] done.”

Luna by Mary Oliver

In the early curtains
     of the dusk
             it flew,
                     a slow galloping

this way and that way
     through the trees
             and under the trees.
                     I live

in the open mindedness
     of not knowing enough
             about anything.
                     It was beautiful.

It was silent.
     It didn't even have a mouth.
             But it wanted something,
                     it had a purpose

and a few precious hours
     to find it,
             and I suppose it did.
                     The next evening

it lay on the ground
     like a broken leaf
             and didn't move,
                     which hurt my heart

which is another small thing
     that doesn't know much.
             When this happened it was about
                     the middle of summer,

which also has its purposes
     and only so many precious hours.
             How quietly,
                     and not with any assignment from us,

or even a small hint
     of understanding,
             everything that needs to be done
                     is done.

“Luna” by Mary Oliver from Why I Wake Early: New Poems by Mary Oliver © Beacon Press, 2004: pg. 43-44.