We were two twenty-something girls enthusing over football. Lisa said, A well-executed play is poetry in motion. Surely, I had heard the phrase poetry in motion before; The Wind in the Willows was one of my favorite childhood reads. But it was then that it grabbed me.

The beauty of coordinated movement makes my heart sing.

A five-way intersection near my house can be a concert or it can be disconcerting. When two left turns, two straight-aheads and one right turn flow—without a brake or jerk—, I spend the next mile with my mental math compass recreating the scene on (mental) paper, drawing arcs and straight lines, pleased down to the perimeters.

Planes landing, taking off, banking: a colorful three-dimensioned x-y graph.

Canadian geese writing vees in the sky.

Mallards settling on the water.

Ping pong and volleyball volleys that make you forget to breathe.

A homely illustration. My husband and I regularly invite people over for dinner. Like the five-way stop, an evening can flow smoothly or it’s a herky-jerky highwire.

On fluid days we prepare food, space, and settings with intuitive understanding. Curt gets home, takes a reading of the climate, and does the next thing. After people leave, the cleanup begins with the tacit agreement to keep on until the chores run out. Or until we say, “Good enough!” The warp and woof of well-executed teamwork is satisfying.

Where do you see poetry in motion?