Mary Asks for a Miracle

"behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing"
—Luke 2:48

How do you approach a miracle? She forgets her son
has sky spilling out of his mouth, so she doesn’t look
in the temple, where he’s practicing a prayer
that sounds like the only rose-colored feather
on the wing of a desert finch. She searches the road,
with the revellers, the travellers, returning home,
but the miracle is a beak that snaps the pinyon pine
shell apart like a lever, releasing its heart from its case.
The miracle is a set of questions made by the river
that clips its blue leash to the sea. The miracle is
only partly a boy, only partly a bird or a beach.
She forgets the part that is made of fire and wind,
the part that opens what’s closed or finds what’s lost.
She is sad and worried in her unremembering.
What do you say to the miracle you’re missing
when the miracle tells you it is already home?

~ Linda Dove

This evening we celebrated Christmas Eve with all the traditions of our family; lazy idleness, videogames (for the Boy), desultory exercise (for Mojo and myself), and a meal of honey ham (because honeybaked ham...), scratch mac n' cheese with sharp Tillamook cheddar because the Boy - whose diet generally consists of whatever is on the "prohibited" list published by the American Diabetic Association - specially requested it, and a garden salad because it symbolizes the rebirth of Sol Invictus or Christ, whichever comes first, or who takes two out of three thumbwrestling.

I won't pretend that this winter solstice doesn't feel dark and dim, and not merely because we're into the Dark Ages here in the Pacific Northwest, the rainy months when we see the sun only randomly from week to week. To me it feels like the December of 1860 must have; a tense, louring time vibrating like a tightening string, turbulent with anger and danger. The election of 2016 has made evident what has been true since 1980; that We the People are a house divided against itself, that we are in a cold civil war, and the the only thing left to question is whether we will continue in this tortuous state or break out into open struggle to become all one or all the other. I can neither effectively fight that struggle or win it; all I can do is try and turn it from me and mine.

So I hope you and yours are together, and safely ensconced in love and light. The night is long and dark, and we are our own candles, flickering bravely against the cold outside the glass.

May all of us find our way home safe tonight.