If there is one certainty about life, it is that for each of us, it will conclude. Until that time comes, we are graced with an unknown number of days and the opportunity to choose how we will live them. 

The renowned and beloved poet Mary Oliver chose to spend hers primarily in the woods, and often with dogs. There she experienced wonder, like that expressed in one of her most iconic poems, “The Summer Day,” in which Oliver posed the pressing question: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?”

This question emerged from her observation of a grasshopper she came across while on one of her countless forays into the natural world—her favorite way to spend the days that ultimately comprised her life. 

I share a similar passion, and recently spent part of my day closely observing a fly carefully consuming a crumb. I became enthralled at the insect’s delicate ministrations as it skillfully grasped the bit of cookie and brought it to its mouthparts, nimbly rotating it with efficiency and vigor—much like a human might.

Now if you find it offensive to be likened to a fly—well, I’m sorry for you. Mary might be too, for you would be missing a potentially marvelous moment and the opportunity to widen your world (and possibly write a prized poem).

As if the fly weren’t enough, imagine my excitement to come across an Old Man of the Woods mushroom and a tiny toad keeping company along a forest path! And then to see a pale Indian pipe plant beckoning from a glowing beam of morning sunlight as I washed dishes and gazed out my kitchen window! 

So what did I do? I paused what I was doing to receive the gifts of a fly, a toad, a mushroom and a ghostly plant rising like an angel from the dark earth—each offering a glimpse of their uniquely wonder-ful lives. 

Of course, one can dismiss any of these experiences as simply other beings doing what they do. There’s that. Or one can keep an open mind to less conventional possibilities. “Only if there are angels in your head will you ever, possibly, see one,” Oliver reminds us in “The World I Live In.” 

An open and imaginative mind creates space for delight and mystery and maybe, even, the chance that such encounters might be Oliver nodding to a longtime fan who took her words to heart so many years ago and gained a richer life in return. 

Oliver, who was born in 1935, entered the great mystery in 2019. In her poem, “When Death Comes,” she wrote, “I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.” If you are nodding in agreement, pay attention to grasshoppers and flies, to mushrooms and toads, to mysterious plants rising like phantoms from the dark earth toward the endless sky.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” wrote American author Annie Dillard in “The Writing Life.” Learn how Oliver spent her life in the new documentary, “American Masters—Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World,” a film by Sasha Waters that premiered recently on PBS. The highly anticipated film can also be bought or rented on major digital platforms.

(And if you’d like to marvel at a fly artfully eating a cookie crumb, check out my video at youtu.be/B0F7GHS4jsk.)