"The Way We Love Something Small"

13 April 2020: What a strange day today has been. Felt out of rhythm and step all day. Felt stressed and anxious more than not. Trying to relax this evening. This poem helps. In the little explanation that accompanied it in the poem-a-day email, Kimberly Blaeser explains it:

“This poem comes from a series of similar pieces all called ‘The Way We Love Something Small,’ pieces grounded in an understanding of poetry as an act of attention. Each poem focuses on those heightened moments common to our experience in which a place, sound, personal exchange, natural creatures, even an object suddenly resonates or becomes transformative. While rescuing a newborn mouse, I saw for the first time the pup’s delicate, nearly invisible claws, and writing of that moment illuminated it. Because the poems arise from ‘small’ epiphanies, I use an airy, slight form. I see the pieces in this series as aspiring to an impact similar to haiku: simultaneously grounded in image and allusive, they invite a re-seeing of what is before us.”

Looking around me in this space, a space I am blessed to have, I see all around me small things I love: a glimpse though the window of the redbud tree in full bloom out back; just a piece of BabyCat's white foot as she stretches out nearby (always nearby), but not fully in sight; the streetlight's beam outside, casting a pinkish gold on the blacktop.

So yes...surprise: poetry helps.