What Makes a Miracle?

MIRACLE FAIR

By Wislawa Szymborska (born 1923, in Poland)

Commonplace miracle:

that so many commonplace miracles happen.

An ordinary miracle:

in the dead of night

the barking of invisible dogs.

One miracle out of many:

a small, airy cloud

yet it can block a large and heavy moon.

Several miracles in one:

an alder tree reflected in the water,

and that it’s backwards left to right

and that it grows there, crown down

and never reaches the bottom,

even though the water is shallow.

An everyday miracle:

winds weak to moderate

turning gusty in storms.

First among equal miracles:

cows are cows.

Second to none:

just this orchard

from just that seed.

A miracle without a cape and top hat:

scattering white doves.

A miracle, for what else could you call it:

today the sun rose at three-fourteen

and will set at eight-o-one.

A miracle, less surprising than it should be:

even though the hand has fewer than six fingers,

it still has more than four.

A miracle, just take a look around:

the world is everywhere.

An additional miracle, as everything is additional:

the unthinkable

is thinkable.

In her poem, “Miracle Fair,” Wislawa Szymborska writes about miracles. And the speaker doesn’t discuss crippled elderly men in wheelchairs bowing beneath the hands of magical priests as they are suddenly and mysteriously healed. And the speaker doesn’t discuss a single mother desperately rummaging through her home frantically trying to find some change to buy her children a Christmas tree when out of nowhere an angel, equipped with a glowing stack of 100’s, appears in her living room.

The speaker mentions such miracles as “the hand has fewer than six fingers,/ it still has more than four” and “today the sun rose at three-fourteen/ and will set at eight-o-one.” Now, although these occurrences may not fit the standard model of a “miracle,” I’m wondering why not. Why must only seemingly magical and impossible situations be deemed as miracles? Why isn’t it a miracle that we can look down and tell our brain to move the left foot and instantly “stick your left foot in, stick your left foot out, you stick your left foot in and you shake it all about”?

This poem, among reading it, instantly reminded me of a conversation I had last Saturday with this man from Ghana. He just started talking to me on the T on my way home from work. After eight hours of working and with the desire to just get to my apartment I was, at first, not in the mood to talk to some stranger. I also took into account that it is very rare in this city, unless it is a Friday or Saturday night where most people on the B Line are just drunk anyways, to start an in-depth and thought-provoking conversation with someone you don’t know. Most people on the train just stand there, attempting to not fall every time the train makes a sudden jolt to the left or right and attempting not to look anyone directly in the eyes.

The above sentence is one thing that mysterious man from Ghana brought up to me. Something else he said I can basically remember verbatim. He said that people here always look so unhappy. He said that we have two arms and two legs and we are standing here breathing, what is there to be unhappy about? He said that life is a miracle on its own.

I’m not sure how much I can discuss this man’s opinion or the opinion of the speaker in “Miracle Fair” without sounding too preachy or like I’m trying to make some deep and insightful comment about the world (although I think that may occur in my columns far too often). I think I’ll just leave this week’s column right here. Just some thoughts for this week, which by the way is a miracle because it is fewer than eight days but more than six.