EVERYDAY MYSTERIES

A Continual Miracle (GOSh.)

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This perspective on miracles from the American poet Walt Whitman explores the extraordinary miracle of life itself and in its multitude of expressions in the mundane and ordinary. As we reflect on these everyday often taken for granted phenomena we are drawn to realise that they are in fact wonderful and awesome in themselves. By this measure each breath is a mystery and each sunrise an operation of a sacred and holy rite, may our hearts be stilled and our eyes opened to all that is miraculous lying at our feet! ~GOSh.~

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MIRACLES

Why! who makes much of a miracle?

As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,

Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,

Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,

Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water,

Or stand under trees in the woods,

Or talk by day with any one I love--or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,

Or sit at table at dinner with my mother,

Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,

Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon,

Or animals feeding in the fields,

Or birds--or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,

Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down--or of stars shining so quiet and bright,

Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring;

Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best--mechanics, boatmen, farmers,

Or among the savans--or to the soiree--or to the opera,

Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery,

Or behold children at their sports,

Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman,

Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial,

Or my own eyes and figure in the glass;

These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,

The whole referring--yet each distinct, and in its place.

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To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,

Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,

Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,

Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;

Every spear of grass--the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women,and all that concerns them,

All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

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To me the sea is a continual miracle;

The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships,with men in them,

What stranger miracles are there?

Walt Whitman