Being a Guest is an Art Form (New Poem by Polly Castor)

Being a Guest is an Art Form

This week I’ve learned by hosting
particularly wonderful guests
that being a guest is an art form.
As a host, I think about
how comfortable my guests are,
and what I can do for them,
how to give them the very best time,
but guests can cherish their hosts’
comfort level too, making it either
easier or harder–
more pleasurable and fun,
like a sluicing, swooshing
water slide,
that you want to run to do again,
or contrariwise,
with more grating friction,
like a slogging uphill effort
that you can’t wait
to have be over.

You choose which way
to be as a guest;
will you be easy and joyous
like a helium balloon for a toddler,
or a triggering drone of negativity,
nit-picking and faultfinding
with proverbial white gloves
testing for dust on the mantel
or backseat driving,
incessantly correcting unnecessarily?

How easily are you satisfied
with what you receive,
how willingly do you pitch in
and find ways to offer graciousness
in informal ways in return?
How secure are you
in extending yourself
without judgmentalism or pretense?

Some guests make hosting a breeze
through openness and generosity,
gratitude and taking initiative,
assisting with what needs to be done,
asking curious, insightful questions,
and being pleased
by even tiny components
of whatever they experience.
Remarkable guests offer the miracle
of basic respect, curtesy,
and consideration in return.
Why does that feel so rare
when unabashedly genuine?
Why are so few thinking of others
and not just of themselves?

That’s brilliant when it happens
like it just did for us;
it goes as far as light years,
and is vastly valuable beyond expression.
Then heartfelt care can reverberate between
like sacred vibrations of visible sound
or mirrors facing one another,
reflecting endlessly, pitch perfect,
in uncomplicated authenticity.

This expands deep, long, and builds–
happy to be welcomed again someday,
cherished, appreciated,
and at home together,
even though they
only flew in and flew out
for a time apart
of eating, hugging, swimming,
walking, talking, playing,
sharing, listening, discovering,
and living along side one another,
in a sweet mutuality
where definitions
of friend and family blur,
and each one is reciprocally blest
in a simple oasis of
completely competent love.

by Polly Castor
8/25/26