This Charcoal Tide

This Charcoal Tide

Gulls feet leave prints like anchors. I approach, and they lift the chain.  Cold mist falls, winter’s curtain drawn tight around the darkened day. I slip deeper into my jacket, tuck fingers into sleeves.    The horizon thaws in a flock of birds, avocets standing on a single leg, they hold the other to the heat of their bellies. When they rise, their bodies are drops of paint pooled together in a charcoal tide.  They reach me, and the sky splits in two like I am Moses hoisting a staff, like everything is a miracle, like everything is a miracle.  

The Prompt

It’s a moment in history when anyone and everyone might reasonably long for a miracle. It’s a moment in time when one might understandably forget that miracles (at least in the sense that the word is colloquially used) surround us all the time. Or do they? I’ll let you decide. If you’re looking for a prompt to play around with today, I offer up that word: miracle.

Our friend Merriam-Webster suggests two definitions. A miracle is “an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs” or “an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment.”

I have often heard it said that Albert Einstein suggested two ways to live. “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.”

A google search suggests that Einstein may not actually have said this—that there may be two other ways to live your life. One is as if everything you want to assert was said by Einstein. The other is as though you must take responsibility for your own beliefs. But I digress! And I confess I like that Einstein/Neinstein quote, regardless of its source.

How does the quote land for you? How do you understand the word ‘miracle’? What around you seems miraculous? What, as you see things, is the relationship between the miraculous and the mundane? Between miracles and natural laws? Between miracles and faith? Between miracles and good, old-fashioned effort?

If you could magic one miracle into being, what would you choose? How has that longing changed (or not) over the span of your life?

When you think of miracles, is there a particular memory, story, sense perception, or question that rises to the surface for you?

Whatever comes up for you as you ponder all of this, imagine spreading it around you on a picnic blanket. Take in the full buffet of memories, stories, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and images. Pick a few that intrigue you most. Let yourself wonder what they might taste like when paired together—what unexpected balance, contrast, or harmony might arise between them. What they might inspire in you. Play. Make a mess of words. If you’d like, call whatever emerges a miracle. I’d love to read your poems or reflections in the comments thread! Thank you for being here with me.

P.S. I think the courage, playfulness, and willingness to get tossed onto the sand displayed by this body-surfing gull is pretty miraculous. If enough of us live together into this moment like that, I wonder what might be possible.