Miracles

Laura Thomas

Miracles


Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim-the rocks-the motion of the waves-the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?


Walt Whitman

 

Whitman is right. Miracles are common as dirt. Everywhere we look – can we explain the things we see, the normal, everyday things – a glass of water! Think of the mysteries in a glass of water alone – what is the water made of ? How has it come to be in the glass? Where has it been? And the glass – we may think we know what it's made of, but how was glass first discovered? Who was it that saw what could be done with it? One question only leads to another. One fantastic thing only leads to another. And we walk through our homes, through our streets, through forests, along beaches and streams – surrounded, innundated, swirled within an expanding crescendo of amazement. 

It's quite true, there is nothing I know that is not a miracle.

 

Their Fire

Albert Bierstadt

 

Their Fire

Their fire was small. They fed it only enough

To keep them through the night and to keep them

Together and unafraid

Lying between it and the face of the cliff

Where, at the foot under a hanging stone,

They had made their shelter

For a time, as others had in years so distant

Now, they seemed as thick and soft as the stillness

Standing around their sleep

In which the animals also slept (the beavers

And otters whose doors were deep under the water,

Squirrels in their hollows)

Or walked in the sleep of others (the gray foxes,

The martens and black bears, silent, listening).

Had they too wondered,

Those other makers of fire, how long to linger

In this same place, how many living seasons

It would keep them warm,

Would hold them together at a single hearthstone

While the round year turned the sky, thickened the clouds

Or thinned then, turning

The snow and the rain as it turned the wind, turned leaves

And turned the color of their hair like ermine's fur

And turned the earth?

They held their hands out to that restless fire

As if to shield it, to calm it, and they turned

Their faces to its light.

David Wagoner

I wanted to ignore the circumstances and just have poems. But poetry comes out of what we’re living. And what we’re living is so strange that it’s hard to know what to say or do. But it does feel like each family unit (sometimes that means 1, because 1 is a potential family, and comes from a family, whether blood or water, however fractured or subtracted from) is sitting by its fire, ruminating over the past, wondering about the future. We are self-absorbed at this moment, so I like how this poem brings nature back into the scene. I’m so glad to see for myself the cherry trees blossoming, or the Northern Flickers as they drum loudly on any metal available – the season is Spring and it is expanding and blossoming. It reminds me that we will too. I keep my loved ones close, and turn my face to the light. Warm my hands at the fire. What tomorrow brings is tomorrow’s problem. We’re "together now, and unafraid".

 

Spring Poem

Brent Cotton

Spring Poem



It is spring, my decision, the earth
ferments like rising bread
or refuse, we are burning
last year's weeds, the smoke
flares from the road, the clumped stalks
glow like sluggish phoenixes / it wasn't
only my fault / birdsongs burst from
the feathered pods of their bodies, dandelions
whirl their blades upwards, from beneath
this decaying board a snake
sidewinds, chained hide
smelling of reptile sex / the hens
roll in the dust, squinting with bliss, frogbodies
bloat like bladders, contract, string
the pond with living jelly
eyes, can I be this
ruthless? I plunge
my hands and arms into the dirt,
swim among stones and cutworms,
come up rank as a fox,

restless. Nights, while seedlings
dig near my head

I dream of reconciliations
with those I have hurt
unbearably, we move still
touching over the greening fields, the future
wounds folded like seeds
in our tender fingers, days
I go for vicious walks past the charred
roadbed over the bashed stubble
admiring the view, avoiding
those I have not hurt

yet, apocalypse coiled in my tongue,
it is spring, I am searching
for the word:
finished
finished

so I can begin over
again, some year
I will take this word too far.



Margaret Atwood

“So I can begin over again...” It does mean letting things go. Burning, forgiving. Spring is partly saying goodbye to everything dead. Out of the dead rises a new thing. Can we let it be, so there is no weight with us, so we can move and grow? So we can lift up our heads? See new things, step out into new stories? (How many vicious walks have you been on?!)

We may not be ready for it, but it’s Spring.

A new thing.

Piano Practice

Glenn Gould, Photographer Uknown

Piano Practice

For Frances Dillon Hayward

1

Such splendid icecaps and hard rills, such weights

And counter-weights, I think I scale the heights

When pentatonic Chinese crewmen start

Up in a cold sweat from the bottom of the keyboard

Only to arrive at some snow-stormed valley

To dissolve in steam-holes and vanish out of sight.

2

The left hand's library is dull, the books

All read, though sometimes, going under velvet,

An old upholsterer will spit out tacks,

Turn them into sparks and smartly hurl them

Up and down the loudest bowling alley—

His pressure of effects can last all night.

3

Two bird notes endlessly repeat themselves.

Or are they fish scales—iridescent, hard?

Mica into marble back to mica?

No images in trills. They're formal. Take

Your foot off the pedal. You're in a wood

Near the sea. And every tree and wave is fake.

4

An underwater haircut by Debussy?

Oh, that's too easy. Astringent lotions

Let the swimmer down by easy stages

Down among the flashy soda fountains

Down to the bottom where the light bulbs waver

Down where all the mirrors eat their hearts out.

5

Grammar becoming poetry is what

You're after—say, a rational derangement

Requiring that you forget technique

And concentrate on what is harder like

A fireplace that burns pine needles only,

Before which spills the gore of Persian rugs.

6

A vial of antiseptic meant for Schubert,

One modest, flat meticulous translation

Of Chopin's lightning undercurrent Spanish—

These are the mere necessities of travel.

Someone you must meet is Dr. Czerny.

Then, through him, Domenico Scarlatti.

7

Seizure are occurring. Despite snow-lightning,

The black keys are bent on mountain climbing—

All of it against a doctor's warning.

Soon they're descending like the black dots of

A wirephoto in transmission. An

Erotic black wing hovers up above.

8

Bach is more like opening an ember

And digging hard into the heart of fire.

The heart of fire is another fire.

When it comes to Mozart, just say nothing.

Think of it as milk, and drink it slowly.

Slowly you will taste the cream of angels.

9

This black and white's deceptive. Underneath

The spectrum rages. Did you ever see

The calmest waters quickly come to life

Because a minnow's tinfoil flash in sun

Had rent them suddenly? It came. And went.

We take two thousand takes before we print.

10

Don't try to catch that lion by Rousseau.

Before you wake, he'll eat you up. If you

Should meet the sleeping gypsy, let her sleep.

Tomorrow they'll be gone without a trace,

Half fact and half enigma. Now your hands

Are on the mysteries of the commonplace.

Howard Moss

“Now your hands are on the mysteries of the commonplace.” Music – it takes us places, calls up images, stories, people, scenes – but how? What happens to us when music enters? What is it doing? Will we ever know? And does it matter, just as long as it keeps on?

If I Could Tell You

Michelangelo Pittatore

If I Could Tell You

Time will say nothing but I told you so,

Time only knows the price we have to pay;

If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,

If we should stumble when musicians play,

Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,

Because I love you more than I can say,

If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,

There must be reasons why the leaves decay;

Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,

The vision seriously intends to stay;

If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose all the lions get up and go,

And all the brooks and soldiers run away;

Will Time say nothing but I told you so?

If I could tell you I would let you know.

W.H. Auden

If I could tell you what this poem means...

The questions Auden asks are interesting. What is the price we have to pay - for our words and actions? For what? Is something is required of us for being alive? Why do funny things make us sad sometimes? How do you explain contrary reactions like this? Why does it happen that often when we feel most uplifted and euphoric we trip and make fools of ourselves? Why is there no way to predict the outcome of things? And why do we keep thinking there must be a way, in spite of all proof to the contrary? Where does the wind come from? What is the meaning of all these "natural" cycles and seasons? Why on earth do flowers grow? Do they want to? What is the meaning of it? Why do we keep imagining Utopias? Why do they all fail? What if everything as we know it changed? What would be left? And, - will Time give us the answers to these questions? And is Auden saying that Time will say - "I gave you the answer but you didn't grasp it"?

Wouldn't it be a relief to sit with a friend one day and ask questions? Question for question, back and forth - and at the end (or the beginning - where would it ever end?) look at each other and say, "If I could tell you I would let you know."