Attention

by Lucy Griffith

Home— the place of attention.
Where you know that swirl in the road
marks the dust bath of a jackrabbit.
Or that a particular Canyon Wren ends
her descending aria with a startling yee-haw.

That on our longest of days,
the sun retires on the breast
of the northwest horizon
and begins a steady southern swing
to the little knoll where we mark its winter twin.

Our lives held in this gentle cup,
palmed within an arc of light.

From Canary Environmental Literary Magazine.
Reprinted with permission of the author.

Read other poems by Lucy Griffith in We Make a Tiny Herd, available for purchase online.

“Attention is the beginning of devotion,” Mary Oliver once famously wrote. Yet our homes are not always the places where we pay the most attention. We might take care of our house or apartment and look after our belongings, if we’re lucky enough to have them, but after a while, we can easily begin to “see past” all the familiar things and living beings who share the land with us. After coming across this poem by Texas writer, Lucy Griffith, I’ve been paying much more attention to all the signs that tell me I’m home—the ruts of our washed-out gravel driveway, certain patches of blackberries now ripening, the Black-eyed Susans I planted years ago finally blooming as summer wanes, the way they bow down to the sun. So often we look past such small things, perhaps taking the small aspects of our lives for granted. But here Griffith urges us to bring our attention even more deeply to the places we think we know the best, and to see how we are “held in this gentle cup” of home, no matter what else might be going on in our lives or in the world.

Invitation for Writing & Reflection: What are the images and signs that let you know you’re home? What are the daily rituals and encounters that make your place your own, or do you feel that home is more of an idea that you carry with you wherever you go?

ABOUT THE POET: Lucy Griffith

Born in San Antonio, Lucy Griffith grew up in the city and on a ranch called Esperanza, near Cotulla in South Texas. Lucy Griffith has been a licensed psychologist and has worked extensively in the mental health field as well as serving as a school principal and a Special Education teacher. Her experiences as a therapist inform and inspire her work. Lucy is also Certified Texas Master Naturalist, and a regular contributor to the Texas Star, where she shares her observations of the natural world. Griffith’s first collection of poetry is We Make a Tiny Herd—Poems to Honor the Burro Lady of Far West Texas, (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2019).

POETRY SELECTION AND COMMENTARY BY JAMES CREWS

James Crews is the author of four collections of poetry: The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment. He is also the editor of two anthologies: Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and have been reprinted in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry and featured on Tracy K. Smith’s podcast, The Slowdown. James teaches at SUNY-Albany and lives with his husband in Vermont.

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