Clint Smith’s “Ode To Those First Fifteen Minutes After the Kids Are Finally Asleep” →
Clint Smith is an incredible writer and his interview for On Being with Krista Tippett is fire. How the Word is Passed is the first pre-release book I’ve ever gotten (well, except for the Padraig O’Tuama book that came out earlier this year and Bookshop sent to me a couple weeks early). It’s a fascinating, important book.
In addition to being a writer and a poet, Clint Smith is an Arsenal fan and a father. His award-winning book of poems on fatherhood came out last year. He read this poem in the full episode of On Being, but it’s so good that they also released it as a standalone episode of the podcast. Enjoy:
“Ode To Those First Fifteen Minutes After the Kids Are Finally Asleep”
Praise the couch that welcomes you back into its embrace as it does every night around this time. Praise the loose cereal that crunches beneath your weight, the whole-grain golden dust that now shimmers on the backside of your pants. Praise the cushion, the one in the middle that sinks like a lifeboat leaking air, and the ottoman covered in crayon stains that you have now accepted as aesthetic. Praise your knees and the evening respite they receive from a day of choo-choo training along the carpet with two eager passengers in tow. Praise the silence. Oh, the silence. How it washes over you like a warm bedsheet. Praise the walls for the way they stand there and don’t ask for anything. Praise the seduction of slumber that tiptoes across your eyelids, the way it tempts you to curl up right there and drift away even though it’s only 7:30 PM. Praise the phone you scroll through without even realizing that you’re scrolling. Praise the video you scroll past of the man teaching his dog how to dance merengue, praise the way it makes you laugh the way someone laughs when they are so tired they don’t know if they will ever stand up again. Praise the toys scattered across the floor, the way you wonder if it might be okay to just leave them there for now, since you know that tomorrow they will simply end up there again.