I referred to this poem this morning when Keith and I played at the Farmers Market and I promised that I’d post it here.

If you were with us this morning and came looking for it, you are my kind of human. Thank you.

If you stumbled here unknowingly and are reading on for the sheer love of poetry, you are also my kind of human.

Catch by Ciaran O’Driscoll

based on an anecdote of Ed Reavy

It is good for poets to take their

notebooks

to bed with them, for musicians to

sleep

within an arm’s reach of their

instruments.

Not in vain have I been granted this

talent,

a lantern of the mind that wakes

me up.

This morning when my son called in

to ask

about his roster in my plumbing

business,

I told him that the first thing he

must do

was listen to the tune I caught last

night.

I played it and the boy approved my

reel.

A gift of nature, night and urgency:

to slip from beside my dear one and

go

briskly as a fox to the music-place,

my den of soundproof comfort,

knowing well

the dear one just arrived won’t wait

around.

Last night I sat to play not knowing

what

I’d make of the small tumult in my

head,

finding and losing form. But when I

set

the bow to string, the tune took off

alone,

an ice-cube moving on its

meltwater.

From Prairie Schooner; University of Nebraska Press; Volume 85, Number 2, Winter 2011, p 174.