San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

Lynne Bronstein

Every Day Another Miracle

               
I said to the man with the gnarled scarred leg
That he was lucky and he said
If I had been lucky
The accident would not have happened
It’s always the thing to say
For disasters avoided: you were lucky
God was on your side…..
And disaster is a thing of degree.
They will say it’s a miracle that we survive
And life is a miracle
And every day there’s a series of miracles
So when I get out of bed
If I can get from the bed to the bathroom
Without tripping on the floor and breaking my neck
It’s a miracle!
If I eat breakfast and don’t choke on the cereal
Or scald myself with the decaf-it’s a miracle!
If I go outside and walk cross the street
And a huge semi truck driven by a stoned
Hulky fellow who favors Playboy mud flaps
And who is rushing to make his delivery on time
So he can go to one of the Highway 101 bars
And throw back a few
Does not crash into me and run me over
It’s a friggin’ miracle!
My cat did not chew me to shreds today
When I fed her two meals instead of the
Inclusive Resort Five Meal a Day plan
She prefers to be on-
Miracle.
I did not leave my purse on the bus again-
Miracle.
Another month I haggled, bough the least expensive brands,
Did the maximum of work for the minimum of moola
And paid the rent down at the wire
Mira-incredi-fabulo-awesome-cle of miracles.
And still it’s not enough.
Have to pinch myself, startled by realization
That I’ve reached an unmentionable age
And that is supposed to be a miracle.
We never thought we’d make it here
The world was supposed to end
In 1962, 1964, 1968,
At the millennium and last month
But it hasn’t. MIRACLE.
The A Bomb, the H Bomb and the rest of
The alphabet weapons of mass uncertainty
Were supposed to ignite and obliterate
But they did not. A MIRACLE.
Thinking we wouldn’t be here, we lived
And used all our youth up early
Now we scramble to gather
Anything left, to hold it up like
Ragged paisley shawls
And look in the mirror and beg the image
To look back at us
With a miracle.
Out of the assorted adventures of my dreams
I wake up and stretch in bed
And think another morning
I’m alive and it’s a miracle
My task for the day
Is to pull small miracles
Out of the air
When needed
And many are needed
To get through a day
Anyone who looks at me
Should see
That for all the years
I have made it through
I represent the miracles
I have not walked on water
But I have walked successfully on land
I have not made a feast for thousands
But I have made some tasty meals
From what loaves and fishes I have found
To serve for myself and a few friends
I have not made rain fall on the dust bowl
And it has not rained gold sovereigns for me
But I survive every winter’s rain
To see another June with all the jacarandas
Even if I finish this poem
It is some kind of unnoticed and uncalled for
And hardly world shaking but somehow satisfying to me
Mini—teeny-tiny-miracle.