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Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver was born in the small town of Maple Heights, Ohio on September 10, 1935. Her father was a social studies teacher and an athletics coach in the Cleveland public schools. Turning to writing as a creative escape

Summer Day, The

by Mary Oliver (1935–2019)

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9      <date ty="birth" circa="false" suffix="ad">1935</date>
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15

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.

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