Welcome to 31 Days of Poetry & Writing Prompts–Day 31.

It may be a Monday, but I’m celebrating today. I did it! All 31 of the #write31days challenges! Finishing feels so good, and I’m tempted to challenge myself to something new next month–probably something different from blogging 31 days straight. 🙂

Today’s poem is about a place or a sight which catches you off guard with it’s beauty. It’s a fitting way to wrap up this series. Enjoy this one!

Postscript

by Seamus Heaney

And some time make the time to drive out west

Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,

In September or October, when the wind

And the light are working off each other

So that the ocean on one side is wild

With foam and glitter, and inland among stones

The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit

By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,

Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,

Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads

Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.

Useless to think you’ll park or capture it more thoroughly.

You are neither here nor there,

A hurry through which known and strange things pass

As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways

And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

///////////

You have to make the time, to find these moments.

Especially these days. Especially this season of life.

Sometimes they do just happen. Just this past weekend, I lived this blow-your-heart-open moment around the side of the house.

I was looking for my littlest, who had wandered off as he does so well. I found him chasing a leaf, which was blowing in the wind. He had collected a pile of leaves, and this one ran away. He didn’t see me coming, didn’t hear me calling, but the look on his face ushered in that feeling.

You know when you almost need a railing to lean on because it all slows down and you see beyond the surface of an ordinary moment?

It was something like that. There were instant tears spilling down my face, and I stood there, taking it in, wanting to swallow it whole, to capture it somehow with everything in me. I don’t know how long I stood there, watching, how long until he captured the leaf and added it to his pile.

I just remember the twinkle in his eyes, the determination, the enjoyment he found in chasing his runaway.

I remember his sweet little voice, excited I was out there with him and inviting me to play with him and the falling leaves.

I remember the way it caught my heart and blew it wide open.