it’s a miracle, I tell you
—Laura Kasischke, “Near Misses”
It’s a miracle, I tell you,
that I am here to make the breakfast
and spread the jelly
on the stale bagel,
a miracle for me to walk
down the icy street
in these scuffed up boots
with these scuffed up feet
and my scuffed up dreams
and my scuffed up love,
a miracle to wander through
the smear of the days,
the spill of the years,
my cells slowing down,
my candles blown out
and relit and blown out
and relit again,
yes a miracle, not just
biology, to feel it so profoundly,
this gratitude that I might stumble
and stride through the world,
a little hum finding my lips
as one foot falls again
in front of the other,
and is lifted, then falls,
and is lifted again.
you are too young to have these thoughts, but they resonate with me…and it is enriching to have them put into such apt words. such attitudes befit the reality of maturing/aging. write on, rosemerry!
Hi Carol, welllll … it is my birthday today, and I am all consumed with thoughts of aging and birth and death (day of the dead) … I spend my birthday in the cemetery every year with friends reading poems about birth and death … so glad this one found resonance with you!