Until the Miracle Comes

Until the Miracle Comes

The moment refreshment lights upon my eyes,
a sleep from closed to open, and I want to take a drive,
or walk for more than a moment,
the pain wraps like an eel around my head
and keeps me stranded on this island

With moons that revolve morning and night,
booms and headlights, bees and polite phone calls
giving me the data for the day.

When I hit “send” after sending my heart to the page,
I knew you would see who you’ve always seen,
a brother, another just like you, who has seen it all
and still plays it cool (behind the screen we both
know the way words sound when we give ear,
not fright, to what we hear).

When I hit “send” I was not asking for a place on
another list of prayer. My name is mentioned
more often now, than ever I suppose. And the breath,
the fragrance, the incense, the intense love that ascends
to the throne is more than life in these moments between
pulses of pain and prayer.

When I hit “send” I did not expect a season of Miracles,
though I never turn down fresh-baked goods, free loaves
with cinnamon swirl, although I’ve eaten a bagel 15 minutes
before. I would not turn down a Miracle at all, yet

Until the Miracle comes

I hit “send” to hear a human who knew me; whose
silence-in-waiting maintains my moment just one
day longer; who, through the narrow tunnel of time
recognized the voice across the canyon yawning to read

“I can’t imagine the pain.”

And, having read once the words, could wait another 5 or 6
rounds of the planet, could thank his God
for a warm-blooded “ah yes and I know” from one of
a dozen left who see him head to toe,
faint to grand, sand to granite and know that holding a hand
is as good as a prayer until

The Miracle comes.