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[00:00] Happy Poetry Month. Friends of The Slowdown are invited to celebrate with a special offer from Poetry Magazine. This April, an annual subscription to poetry includes a limited edition notebook. The notebook features a devious quote from Dorothy Alasky on its cover. I'm almost always lying in a poem, and the full poem is inside. Use the notebook for your own poems, lies, and secrets. Subscribe today at poetrymagazine.org/lying. Each episode of The Slowdown offers you a moment of attention, a poem and reflection that shift your perspective during busy days. In celebration of National Poetry Month, you can now receive an added benefit when you support The Slowdown, a sponsorship-free version of the podcast. Keep your listening centered on poetry, because the best moments of your day are uninterrupted. Learn more when you make your gift at slowdownshow.org, and thank you. I'm Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown. I spend a lot of time in airports. It can be a stressful place, packed with people who are overloaded with adrenaline and cortisol, subsisting on $30 bags of almonds and $8 bottles of water. People are rushing to make their flights, or frantically finding their way to their terminal, or struggling to get rebooked. I'm often one of them. When I'm preparing for a multi-city book tour, I'm not nervous about reading in front of people, or answering questions, or finding my way around a strange place. I'm nervous about getting where I'm going. And with somewhat regular government shutdowns impacting TSA these days, those nerves aren't coming from nowhere. But there are so many beautiful moments in airports if you pay attention. Parents comforting children, or occupying them with silly games. Couples excited to be going on a trip together. Teams of uniformed student athletes traveling to or from a big game. Outside the terminal, you might see people hugging hello or goodbye, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing. Parents and grandparents picking up kids and swinging them around. Couples reunited, kissing and hugging right there in the pickup lane, with drivers maneuvering around them. After a long day of travel, it warms my heart, and it reminds me that people, and a dog, are waiting for me at home. Travel is difficult, and it's a privilege. It can take us on adventures beyond what we've known, bring us back to a land where we have roots, and reunite far away family. Today's poem finds communion in the airport, seeing the space as a symbol of what binds us. At the Baggage Claim in JFK by Lo Naylor. A man in a black newsboy cap holds a sign with one word, mother. Other men hold signs, but I see mother and cannot look away. It's late, faces are clenched, and the carousels buzz nervously, as if they, too, are awaiting her. I'm not holding a sign, but I glance around to see if my mother might appear anyway, around the corner, draped in totes and purses, wheeling her suitcase with a fraying green ribbon tied to the handle. My child is strapped to me, sleeping, and I imagine my mother, a cushion the shape of a croissant around her neck, lighting upon the man's sign, as if it were the face of her daughter, the one she lost, returned to her. A sign. A siren. Mother. Someone asks, and I overhear the man say, he hasn't seen his mother in twenty-three years. He would have been a small child. Now he's tall, bearded, and he runs to her, a small woman with long braided hair. For a moment, we are all suspended. The whole airport. The passengers. The conveyor belts. The escalators going neither up nor down. Then a sheen reappears on the floors. As the man drops to his knees, wraps his arms around his mother's waist, draws himself into the child who might have hidden behind her legs. It doesn't last, of course. The baby makes her noises, and time clicks back into place, ferries us all away. The Slowdown is a production of American Public Media, in partnership with The Poetry Foundation. To get a poem delivered to you daily, go to slowdownshow.org and sign up for our newsletter. And find us on Instagram at Slowdown Show and bluesky at slowdownshow.org. The Slowdown is written by me, Maggie Smith. The show is produced by Micah Keilbon and Maria Wurthel. Our music is composed by Kyle Andrews. Engineering by Derek Ramírez. Our editor and digital producer is Jordan Turgeon. Additional production help by Susanna Sharpless, Ruby Sigmund, and Lauren Humpert. APM's Director of Distribution is Amy Lundgren. And our president is Chandra Kavati. Hi, it's Maggie. The Slowdown helps you discover new poems and revisit old favorites. You can help us continue showcasing poetry from a diverse swath of authors by making a tax-deductible gift. Head to slowdownshow.org/donatetoday.