Thursday, July 11, 2013

Look...a fragment of eternity

"I'm saying look, here they come, pay attention. 
Let your eyes transform what appears ordinary, 
commonplace, into what it is, 
a moment in time,
an observed fragment of eternity." 
-- Philip Levine

Caroline -- age 7

Sometimes you look at them and they take your breath away.
What is your normal, routine, just humming along gig becomes frozen in a moment 
and the beauty dazzles you.  
It is exquisite.
You feel suddenly breathless.
You squish it into that memory place hoping it will stick.
You pause enough to really feel and know this "fragment of eternity" and then 
in a whisper of time it has vanished.
There's no capturing it.
Just as quickly as it landed, like a butterfly miracle, the moment has moved on into the sea of next moments and new thoughts or needs or things that must be done.

Today I had one.

I looked up at her with her black spot of missing baby tooth, summer streaks of light in her hair, enveloped in the shade of crocodile green leaves pausing for that moment to give me the 
yes-I-can-climb-this face, and I snatched it right up.

Summer's ordinary blessing of time at a park.
Climbing, playing, exploring and investigating this amazing world.

Plucking trumpet flowers off of vines.
Swinging and sliding and jumping and reaching new places.
All in one moment, it crescendoes. 
I notice.
I wrap my heart around it.

Thank you is all that can come out of that moment.

Thank you for her and for parks and friends and good health and for the will and wonder to climb and thank you for letting me be here right now, in this place, to notice.
Thank you.

3 comments:

  1. Beth, I have those moments...and push then so tightly into my memory so as to never let them go...

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    1. Jennifer! Me too! All the time...this one was so strong that I decided to write about it but usually I just do my silent thank you! :) Thanks! ~Beth

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