The Perfection of Moments

A man – young and old at once

walks side by side with his wee girl

she coming barely to his knees

raindrops on the grass sparkling their walk

she stops to park herself along the low rail

of the fence and the companionableness

of them is something you want to reach

out and touch with your hand, holding back

lest you burst the bubble of a moment of a memory

father and child lie side by side on the couch

she with that sprawl of innocence the young

carry with them in to their sleep making our

hearts break with the sheer goodness of them

the smell and the shape and the touch and the

breath of them taking our breath, our shape,

our touch in their wake and making us and

our problems petty and small in the presence

of such a big thing in such a small package –

and he, well he just lays there still in his love

present in the moment of the grace of her

and I know it will not last but in this moment

she . . . he . . . they . . . are perfect and to behold

this . . . this beauty . . . this perfect moment

is to be blessed beyond measure and maybe it’s

okay that it will not last and yet tears crowd

my eyes for I know that it is not okay 

may yet still be but it is not and why is this

perfect perfection not hers forever?  I so

want to know

***

and I in inner dialogue chastize self for its

insistence on seeing the perfection, the beauty,

knowing and well knowing all the else that 

lies around it like the detritus of what could have been

but why should I not see thus?  for is this not how 

God sees?  is this not how God knows?  

what is can be – we know this and yet fail

fail to cling 

fail to believe

and in our failing

the possibilities that perfect moment presents

fail to imagine what it – life – this – could be

so easily forgetting how it is

in the moments

the perfect moments

and there live my tears

in our forgetting

of what God sees

and sees through

Perfection Is a Piece of Mail

Isn’t a piece of mail a wonder?  I sit at my kitchen table and look out the window and see the tiny country post office across the field.  In the morning and later this evening, a truck will pull up dropping off or picking up the day’s collection of mail to deliver to parts unknown to me.

How many hands that letter or bill will pass through before arriving at its intended destination, I cannot say.  But that it all works so well, that it almost always gets where it’s meant to, is a wonder.

Every system that must work perfectly in order to work at all is a wonder.  Much of life doesn’t work that way.  I can open a bag neatly or tear it and still get to its contents.  I can usually be a few minutes early or late to an appointment and be none the worse for it.  I can miss a few pushes on the swing and momentum will still carry you for a time.  Nine times out of ten, even if I miss my target chopping wood, I will not chop my foot off.  Life carries lots of margins for our errors.

But everyone must work in perfect concert for this piece of mail to get to its destination.

The wonder is that it does not fail more often.  Perfection is not, or so we believe, what we humans do best.  And yet here we are, receiving our daily mail with nary a thought how truly amazing that is.

Maybe we’re better at perfection than we thought.