Thor's day

Lightning likes it when we reach up to touch the sky.

And, grounded as we are

lucky in keeping our electricity contained 

and kept a safe distance from the epicenter or eye

It is miraculous we survive, sometimes, like a flash-

in the way that it is so unexpected, sudden

and unbelievable-until it occurs to you. 

Miraculum, as in the object of wonder.

It happened to me on a Thursday in February, 

just past the noon hour.

I was punched in the chest-

windswept out with words-choking on this

wonder-full revelation.

Desperately I tried to grasp my breath 

midair and stuff it back in where it stings 

and has been so hollow

and in wrestling with this 

it may have sounded like crying or rain.

But the dam lids overflowed 

and I struggled to compose a normal sound

while my son grabs a beverage from the fridge behind me, 

I exhale-steadily

as if blowing out a wish.

It was a video I was supposed to watch, assigned, as in destiny.

The woman spoke of her life, nothing like mine. 

Then she spoke of suicide and asked why, why, why-

she was not asking for forgiveness.

She traded her story with a Buddhist, 

the words he chose to frame her parable were:

"You chose Them", I coughed, she repeated, “you Chose them.”

The accusation blinding, hence the tears we blinked back.

It changes Here.

Where things are twisted 

around & 

you break the descending karmic chain
and begin Free fall.

This is when my heart plummeted like lead into my pelvis,

my rib cage closed, and I gasped one last deep breath

before being born once again

on a Thursday in February.

“This is the miracle that happens every tie to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess.” 

-Rainer Maria Rilke

         “Everybody holds the possibility of a miracle.” 

-Elizabeth David 

 “I’ve never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself.” 

-Michel de Maontaigne

Painting by Mårten Eskil Winge (1825-1896), 'Thor's Battle' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Bare witness

It was miraculous-

the way life gets to see itself

Change

genetics 1-oh-1

the children brought here

with great struggle

and left to die

without effort

holes on hearts and all

last names

shorter than

last words.




Watercolor by William Blake c. 1794 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

super-natural and extra-ordinary

Most mistake
miracles for
just coincidence,
which is ironic

as a rule,
coincidence is when
the obstacle is dissolved entirely
just solutions remain

concentrated ad-mixtures
of luck and faith, a coupling
tangled making waves
turbid in the wake

hours
that cannot count stars
that doubts itself
clear enough

for the common kind
of man to consume
as pure prophecy
by numbers.

It is possible,
it was more than probable
that this kind
was a miracle
of just willful
coincidence.


Painting by Jean-François Millet [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.