January 17: Orval Lund, "wrist-wrestling father," Amazement

I'm not amazed by a lot of thing, and I probably should be.  My five-year-old son spends most of his day in a constant state of amazement.  He's amazed when he gets up in the morning and finds out he has to go to kindergarten again.  He's amazed when he opens his lunch box at school and finds a Hershey's chocolate Santa he didn't know was there.  He's amazed when he gets off the school bus and sees my wife waiting there for him.

I wish I were amazed like that.  All the time.  Each moment an exercise in appreciation of the world and life.

Orval Lund wrote a poem about amazement that I love.  I found it in the anthology Good Poems, edited by Garrison Keillor.

Saint Marty is amazed by this poem.

wrist-wrestling father

For my father

On the maple wood we placed our elbows
and gripped hands, the object to bend
the other's arm to the kitchen table.
We flexed our arms and waited for the sign.

I once shot a wild goose.
I once stood not twenty feet from a buck deer unnoticed.
I've seen a woods full of pink lady slippers.
I once caught a 19-inch trout on a tiny fly.
I've seen the Pacific.  I've seen the Atlantic.
I've watched whales in each.

I once heard Lenny Bruce tell jokes.
I've seen Sandy Koufax pitch a baseball.
I've heard Paul Desmond play the saxophone.
I've been to London to see the Queen.
I've had dinner with a Nobel Prize poet.

I wrote a poem once with every word but one just right.
I've fathered two fine sons
and loved the same woman for twenty-five years.

But I've never been more amazed
than when I snapped my father's arm down to the table.

Look up every once in a while and be amazed