I will call it holy
A poem for being where you are
Hi Friends,
My friend Joshua Luke Smith is a poet. He has this excellent line which seems to have captured people’s imaginations:
“This is the main event.”
It’s a prayer. It’s a reminder.
When washing the dishes: “This is the main event.”
When changing nappies: “This is the main event.”
It’s a mantra that he carries forth into the terror and boredom of the ordinary to illuminate it with presence and purpose.
A talisman to ward off the demon of distraction. To crush the haunting lie that somehow, something, somewhere else is really where it’s at.
For me, it’s a reminder that there is no purpose outside the present.
This is the main event.
When I heard this, it reminded me of a poem that I wrote during the first year of my son’s life.
This was my way of responding to the scary experience that life was passing me by too quickly. It was passing me by because yes, I wanted to be fully present, and fully soak in every moment with my family—to remember and honour every moment fully—but because it felt like time was getting thin. “I have things I want to DO.” Things that aren’t able to fit in right now. Too many good things, too little time.
So I wanted to share this poem with you in the hopes that it can help you find some resolve and resolution for yourself.
Godspeed,
TMo
I will call it holy.
My son,
though you are not yet one,
and becoming your father
is actually easier than imagined
what I had guessed all along, I now know for certain:
that I will fail you.
Though you are not yet one
you are already almost my one year old son!
And what do I have to show for it, now that so much is already gone?!
To me it’s like
time is a train I missed
or a hand I have to relinquish.
Though this heart is blooming with room for you
though, if I could,
I would collect up each little bit, under my wings like a hen with its chicks, ready for a future where we grab a sofa and reminisce
but instead, it rushes past
like flickering frames from the window of a train.
I cannot honour it, it’s all just too quick.
Sliding like sand between my digits.
And what irony that this timekeeper around my wrist is your greatest interest.
Each day we keep living these gorgeous pictures I cannot keep.
There is no camera to save each self we share together
and no chest that can keep each worthy memory.
It’s lost like castles on the beach.
So, my boy, I’m sorry.
I’ll take pictures, write poetry, and tell all our stories
but most of all, I promise to just
drink in the glory.
I will curse no time to be ‘over’ or ‘quicker’.
There will be no time that is wished into history and no moment that is skipped.
Even when it is your half-done bum marching away at changing time
your babbling over the television
your pattering hands following me to the shower
your constant climbing up my limbs
your scratching at your head in stress,
and when the skin on your chin is flaring up again
when you’ve got your hands in my cereal again
or you’re fighting off sleep again
sucking on my suede jacket again
need to fall asleep on me again
need to be carried again.
I will not hurry.
I will call it now.
I will call it a memory.
I will call it holy.
I will call it holy.
LOVE this