Summer
Just as the Calendar Began to Say Summer
by Mary Oliver
I went out of the schoolhouse fast
and through the gardens and the wood,
and spent all summer forgetting what I'd been taught --
two times two, and diligence, and so forth,
how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth.
By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back
to the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember
the way the river kept rolling its pebbles,
the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn't a penny
in the bank,
the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light.
Curator’s Note. Mary Oliver deftly reminds us of the freedoms and joy we feel when we “take a break” from all the things expected of us (by others and ourselves) and the measures that define them. Whether it is as a child from on summer vacation from school, or at other times in our lives, the simplicity—so aptly represented by nature and its simple pleasures—is the most joyful.
