On Hearing the Hidden Stanzas

Lindsey said it weeks ago, but the phrase she coined stays with me still. "Everyday life is a practice and a poem."

I don't naturally make note of beauty. I don't default to a heart of thanks. (I know. Shocker.) But even I--grumpy, task-oriented, easily-irritated, impatient mess that I am--can learn with miles of practice and oceans of grace.

If by grace, He teaches me to look with deliberate eyes, if through His lens I strain to see what for years I've hurried past, then this is how I trade the to-do list for a poem. I'm discovering a new way to measure life, not by how much I achieve, but by how deeply I appreciate, by how clearly I hear these stanzas He whispers within each moment.

Joining Ann again, practicing:

#72 The boy talking me into a Saturday art project

#73 A recipe for homemade clay

#74 How Daddy miraculously guessed correctly that Caed's creation was a T-Rex

#75 My favorite of the batch -- Blue of Blue's Clues

#76 Caed spouting off all the jobs he wants to do when he grows up, how he can't begin to choose between being "an illustrator, an author, a pilot, an engineer, an air force guy, a coach, a zookeeper, an astronaut, an artist..."

#77 Dani following up with how she can't choose either, between "a monkey, a princess, a kangaroo, a dog, a ballerina, a rhino or a peopley-kangertar"

#78 How she made us all laugh. Should I add comedian to her list?

#79 His attempt at writing "non-fiction." In the author's foreword, "This book is about the body." And in the page that precedes, "Those lines are vanes."

 
#80 Little girl's first manicure

#81 The longest I've ever seen her sit still

#82 And smiling the whole time

#83 Sleeping bags for indoor camping

#84 The love of lovies. Caed's declaration, "I'm never going to sell my green blankie. Not even when I go to college. That's a fact."

#85 Dani's imitation, "And I'm never gonna sell my cold blankie. Cuz it is so 'pecial to me."

A poem needn't be flowery, fancy or rhyme. It needn't sway along in perfect pentameter. To be a poem, it must only be seen as such, by someone, anyone, and I don't just mean the experts. If I open my eyes, if I listen closely, if I practice, I begin to hear the hidden stanzas in everyday life, clear as the day--the every day.