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Simon: Tell me you love me.
Emma: I love you.
Simon: Simon.
Emma: I love you Simon.
Simon: Miracle three.

The Saint


M I R A C L E       F A I R
 

The commonplace miracle:
that so many common miracles take place.

The usual miracles:
invisible dogs barking
in the dead of night.

One of many miracles:
a small and airy cloud
is able to upstage the massive moon.

Several miracles in one:
an alder is reflected in the water
and is reversed from left to right
and grows from crown to root
and never hits bottom
though the water isn't deep.

A run-of-the-mill miracle:
winds mild to moderate
turning gusty in storms.

A miracle in the first place:
cows will be cows.

Next but not least:
just this cherry orchard
from just this cherry pit.

A miracle minus top hat and tails:
fluttering white doves.

A miracle (what else can you call it):
the sun rose today at three fourteen a.m.
and will set tonight at one past eight.

A miracle that's lost on us:
the hand actually has fewer than six fingers
but still it's go more than four.

A miracle, just take a look around:
the inescapable earth.

An extra miracle, extra and ordinary:
the unthinkable
can be thought.
 

Wislawa Szymborska

€ΧΉΰΓΧΝΉ | Ί··ΥθαΕιΗ | Szymborska | Ί·΅θΝδ»


 
Hanna putting on her stockings in the kitchen.
Hanna standing in front of the tub holding the towel
in her outstretched arms.
Hanna riding her bike with her skirt blowing in her slipstream.
Hanna in my father's study. She has run her finger
along he backs of the books and looked into the
darkness f the window, at the reflection of the
bookshelves, and at her own.

Delighted Hanna, laughing and beaming in the silk nightgown.
She looked down at herself, turned around,
danced a few steps, looked at herself in the mirror, and danced some more.

Hanna in shorts, her face turned towards me but
with an expression I cannot read at all.

And in that briefest of moments
in which I took my eyes off her, she was gone.