catching air

I was talking with a friend this weekend while sitting in a butterfly pavilion. As we marveled at the butterflies dancing about, he mentioned a poem that he had recently read. It was Katerina Stoykova-Klemer's How to Write a Poem, which simply reads “Catch the air around the butterfly.”

My friend explained that butterflies are too delicate to touch. A child trying to catch a butterfly often kills it without the slightest intentions. Like butterflies thoughts, feelings, emotions frequently expressed through poetry are often to frail to touch. The poet assembles words around these thoughts like catching the air around the butterfly. It is catching the air that allows a small glimpse of the butterfly.

Since that conversation I have been pondering what other parts of life are too delicate, too frail to touch. What things are we limited to trying to catch the air around it?

it's been a while

Do you ever have those times when you wonder how many things can be pack into such a short time? I don’t necessarily mean activities, but new thoughts, ideas, perspectives. That has been the past four days for me.

It has been marked by a life-giving conversation while hiking with Kristin, time to rest at home, finishing a big application, a long time to think in read while on a long layover in O’Hare, Easter service this morning at my church here in Grant County, and lunch afterwards with some friends from the church.

It’s been a lot of thinking, but it has been a much needed time of being refreshed. That will prove helpful as the conference I am in charge of is less than two weeks away. I’m sure many of those thoughts will be making their way here as I can better articulate them, but for now this will do.