The spectacular moment -- The World as It Is (Carolyn Miller) and Crossing the Loch (Kathleen Jamie)

I know, I've been a little slow the last few weeks.  But, I'm feeling really good.  Several talks are done, medical school graduation was seamless and lovely, I am going to a poetry and care-giving conference at Duke this weekend and taking my daughter to see some schools near Duke, and, and , AND........

this lax mom is ECSTATIC about Will's team beating a division 1 team (they are a division below this based on school size, etc) that they have never beaten, ever before--today, just now, wow.  Yes, it was 50 and raining.  Yes, the crazy lax parents were out there with layers on screaming their hearts out.  I  had on, just in case you wanted to know, two long-sleeved t-shirts, one fleece US vest, one US football sweatshirt with Gilkeson on it, a black and maroon wool US baseball cap, and finally, the US lacrosse windbreaker--all pilfered out of Will's closet an hour before the game.  I looked good.

 Ok, so we were down most of the game--by 2 goals, 3, 1, 2.  Half-time comes and goes and the Preppers pick it up a little.  We're a goal down and we're deep into the third period.  We score to tie the game!  Ok, the fans are jumping up and down (all 30 parents and a smattering of die-hard girlfriends and the occasional  god-parent).  Ugh, they score again: 9 to 10-- fourth period with 4 minutes to go.  Well, the boys had a flawless 4 minutes and scored three more times to pull it out, and Will had the last two goals!! The crowd went wild!!

 This was a huge win and now they're on to the state championships. I was following my advice in a talk I gave on resilience,  and being in the moment, being present.  And it  was one of those spectacular moments we'll all remember.  How much fun is that, I ask you??  Ok, I'm going on too long.  I have been collecting a few good poems that are really all about a particular moment in time and focusing on this particular time or event; detailing it, being present to it, making it present for us.  see what you think.  I'll report back about the state tournament over the next two weeks.

The World as It is (Carolyn Miller)

No ladders, no descending angels, no voice
out of the whirlwind, no rending
of the veil, or chariot in the sky—only
water rising and falling in breathing springs
and seeping up through limestone, aquifers filling
and flowing over, russet stands of prairie grass
and dark pupils of black-eyed Susans. Only
the fixed and wandering stars: Orion rising sideways,
Jupiter traversing the southwest like a great firefly,
Venus trembling and faceted in the west—and the moon,
appearing suddenly over your shoulder, brimming
and ovoid, ripe with light, lifting slowly, deliberately,
wobbling slightly, while far below, the faithful sea
rises up and follows.

Crossing the Loch (Kathleen Jamie) Remember how we rowed toward the cottage on the sickle-shaped bay, that one night after the pub loosed us through its swinging doors and we pushed across the shingle till water lipped the sides as though the loch mouthed 'boat'? I forgot who rowed. Our jokes hushed. The oars' splash, creak, and the spill of the loch reached long into the night. Out in the race I was scared: the cold shawl of breeze, and hunched hills; what the water held of deadheads, ticking nuclear hulls. Who rowed, and who kept their peace? Who hauled salt-air and stars deep into their lungs, were not reassured; and who first noticed the loch's phosphorescence, so, like a twittering nest washed from the rushes, an astonished small boat of saints, we watched water shine on our fingers and oars, the magic dart of our bow wave? It was surely foolhardy, such a broad loch, a tide, but we live—and even have children to women and men we had yet to meet that night we set out, calling our own the sky and salt-water, wounded hills dark-starred by blaeberries, the glimmering anklets we wore in the shallows as we shipped oars and jumped, to draw the boat safe, high at the cottage shore.