Moving into a child-centred poetic practice

I’ve been busy catching up with granddaughter’s development – she talks! she tantrums! she is so sweet!. With days occupied in looking after her, I found myself wondering where my poetic life has gone.

Drop down a semantic level. These big words like ‘poetic’ or ‘beauty’ or ‘goodness’ are sometimes too big to offer useful meaning. What is the poetic for me? where does it come from? I remind myself that it comes from noticing the specific. From giving loving attention to what is around me. From taking the moment into my hands and holding it with care, and looking, really looking.

I realise this is my current poetic practice:

I observe her total engagement in the task at hand – placing a dinosaur on a brick tower takes full concentration, and before that it was drinking the ‘fluffy’ out of a small cup. It’s total body and brain engagement in the doing. There’s no point in interrupting or helping or making suggestions during this work.

I gaze at the shape and patterns of her eyebrows when she cuddles up to me – as if silk had been applied in a fine herringbone pattern.

I notice her need for short stretches of quiet and solitude – she finds a place to sit, and returns there after checking we are still drinking our coffee. I imagine she is processing her recent full-on experiencing, whatever that was. She tells herself what we’ve done in little talk routines, over and over.

And with what looks to this weary adult like courage, I see her trying over and over. Only she is not ‘trying’ – that’s my meaning stuck on to her behaviour. She is doing and being.

I am challenged to hold back my need to label behaviour and attach meanings, to slow myself down to her pace, to notice and give her my full attention.

What is currently being offered to you as a poetic practice, and what challenges for growth does it present?