Mary Oliver's Prayers

"I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention."

The Summer Day

By 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 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?

“The Summer Day” is one of beloved poet Mary Oliver’s best-known poems—and home to one of the most memorably quoted (memorized, repeated, tattooed, pasted in pieces of art, and woven into speeches) lines from all of her poetry:

Questions like these are not uncommon in Mary’s poetry.

This year—particularly this Advent season—I’ve gravitated towards her poems more than just about anything else I could choose to read, even novels. Many of them are filled with these kinds of invitations to pause, to ponder. To slow down, to remember to look outside of oneself, to meditate on the things that matter in life, lasting or not. Something about these thoughts (that always seem to start with the natural world that surrounds us) seem like an avenue of spiritual reflection, even a place to prepare one’s heart for the coming of a much greater Something.

Although Mary Oliver never claimed to be a Christ-follower, her work is saturated with spiritual references of all kinds. Of course, she loved speaking of the sacred she sought out in the ordinary—that was her life’s work. She repeatedly used religious imagery in a tasteful and beautiful way, and yet it reads as if she was constantly contemplating it herself. Especially later in life, her poems became increasingly explicit in their yearning for God, even calling Him by name—steps ahead of when she vaguely questioned His existence through observing the grasshopper in “The Summer Day.”

Prayers of Paying Attention and Gratitude

In that moment of the summer day, there was nothing better than the act she took part in—simply paying attention to the beauty in front of her and expressing gratitude for it. This act alone is honoring the Creator of this beauty. Even if Mary may have wondered if her expressions of gratitude for her observations were floating into the void, she acknowledged the innate worth of the thankfulness, wherever it was going.

In its own small way, being present and noticing can be an offering of praise, even if one doesn’t quite have the words for it (yet). Through attentiveness, we as humans can be reminded of the sacred in what’s often overlooked as mundane…and we can give thanks for it.

I Happened to be Standing

By Mary Oliver

I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance. A condition I can’t really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why. And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t. That’s your business.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.

Despite her skepticism and distance from the church, Mary often pondered prayer. This time, the idea of prayer is an even more central focus with additional commentary on how it might bring meaning to a “condition [she] can’t really call being alive.”

Like the first poem, “I Happened to be Standing” dwells on questions and uncertainty—not with anxiety, but with curiosity and wonder. I think this uncertainty paired with wonder can itself be what prayer feels like within a tension of belief and doubt: reaching into an unknown. She pauses and finds herself in this small moment listening to the song of a wren—not a grand gesture or a complex ritual—aware of the fact that even this bird is singing praise.

Mary asks, “Is a prayer a gift, or a petition, or does it matter?” And my own immediate answers to each of those questions would be a yes, yes, and yes.

Coming from the place I find myself in my spiritual journey, it’s almost funny…although I grew up low-church Baptist, I recently “converted” to Anglicanism, which is a faith tradition that places a significant spiritual value on liturgy and ritual. Within the past couple of years, I fell deeply in love with the often ancient, written and repeated prayers and ways of worship. Besides the innate beauty of the words, using them is an awe-inspiring picture of community and unity, worshipping together with fellow believers across the world and across centuries.

And now, thinking on Mary Oliver’s poetry and the idea of something as small, personal, and individualistic as paying attention to the beauty God has surrounded us with being a sort of prayer on its own—I can’t help but smile at the fact that both sides might have it right.

Returning to Mary’s question, I can’t help but repeat, does it matter? Because the Baptist or charismatic believer’s spur-of-the-moment “Spirit-led” prayer from the pulpit and the Anglican or catholic believer’s Book of Common Prayer repetition for a specific occasion or time of day is heard by the Lord of the universe all the same.

Prayers of Simplicity and Silence

The very same Lord of the universe prayed during His time on earth, and how did He pray? As much as her poems parallel His prayers in certain ways, Mary Oliver may or may not have placed value on that fact. For Christ-followers, He is the ultimate example, and we’ve been given the great gift of Scripture which describes His prayers (as well as His model prayer for His disciples, which I’ll return to, soon).

When I’m reading the New Testament, something I notice is the simplicity of Christ’s prayers, and how this spoke of His continual connection with His Father—He truly prays without ceasing. While the recorded prayers of Christ are never grandiose gestures, they are always beautiful.

“Not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39).

“Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you” (John 17:1).

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

“Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

Weeping—even silence—can be prayer, too. In a prayer of its own, Psalm 56:8 reads “You have…put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?”

Praying

By Mary Oliver

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but a doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

In yet another of Mary’s poems with prayer at its focus, she strips away the necessity of ritualism. Prayers don’t need to be lengthy or complicated to be meaningful, and they aren’t limited to a specific setting or posture—they can be spoken, sung, or even silent. In her seemingly agnostic understanding, she actually puts a very Biblical idea into poetry—prayer can be just as much about listening as it is about repeating confessions, praises, petitions, etc. or actively putting our streams of thoughts to words.

In His time on earth, Jesus Himself regularly withdrew into quiet places to pray in intentional solitude…I wonder if some of His time in prayer was spent in silence, listening.

Prayers of Need and Anticipation

With that being said, Christ also directly voiced His need for His Father on many occasions. One of the prayers of Christ I referenced earlier was from the Garden of Gethsemane, shortly before His death. From the ground, His words are desperate and raw: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). This vulnerability from the Son of God Himself—fully God, fully human—shows us that our merely human prayers of need, in all of their messiness and even anguish, are both valid and sacred.

Of course, I couldn’t speak of Jesus’ example without pointing to The Lord’s Prayer—the model for His disciples (found in Matthew 6:5-20), which extends to us today:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Whether or not Mary Oliver intended to align with Christ’s example, much of her art echoes the spirit of it—reverent expression of praise or gratitude, acknowledgement of need, and longing for something outside of oneself, often in a quiet, wonder-filled humility.

This longing, especially resonant in “Your kingdom come” in The Lord’s Prayer, circles back to the heart of Advent itself—a season of anticipating the coming of Christ (both Christmas and the second coming). It’s a time to prepare our hearts, reflect, and take hold of hope.

In her poem “Making the House Ready for the Lord”—one of Mary’s most spiritual poems from her last years of life—we see an honest, almost playful depiction of preparation. This isn’t a perfect, polished readiness, but a vulnerable and messy one. As we sweep the corners of our lives and anticipate a much greater Something, we can rest in the truth that God hears us always and meets us in our imperfect prayers. Remember, He more than meets us…He welcomes us.

Making the House Ready for the Lord

By Mary Oliver

Dear Lord, I have swept and I have washed but
still nothing is as shining as it should be
for you. Under the sink, for example, is an
uproar of mice — it is the season of their
many children. What shall I do? And under the eaves
and through the walls the squirrels
have gnawed their ragged entrances — but it is the season
when they need shelter, so what shall I do? And
the raccoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboard
while the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow;
what shall I do? Beautiful is the new snow falling
in the yard and the fox who is staring boldly
up the path, to the door. And still I believe you will
come, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox
the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea-goose, know
that really I am speaking to you whenever I say,
as I do all morning and afternoon: Come in, Come in.