Mary Oliver: "Song of the Builders"

On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God—

a worthy pastime.
Near me, I saw
a single cricket;
it was moving the grains of the hillside

this way and that way.
How great was its energy,
how humble its effort.
Let us hope

it will always be like this,
each of us going on
in our inexplicable ways
building the universe.

 
"Song of the Builders" by Mary Oliver. Text as published in Why I Wake Early: New Poems (Beacon Press, 2005).

Art credit: "Woman bare feet in flower field," photograph taken in Vanoise, French Alps, by Jeff Maion.