Miracle. All of it.

One of the great pleasures of reading poetry is to feel words mean what they usually do in everyday life, and also start to move into a more charged, activated realm. In poetry our familiar language can start to feel resonant with significance, more alive, even noble. The words we use in our everyday lives carry along with them deep reservoirs of history (personal and collective) that can, through a poem, be activated. In a poem, language remains itself yet is also made to feel different, even sacred, like a spell. How this happens is the mystery of each poem, and maybe its deepest meaning. Coming upon a word, having it rise up out of the preconscious, intuitive dream-state and into the poem, either to begin or somewhere along the way or even, blissfully, at the end, is the special reward of being a poet, and a reader of poetry. By being placed into the machine of a poem, language can become alive again. It is both what it is and what it means, but also something that is greater than the ordinary. Somewhere, in every poem, there are words that shine forth, light up, almost as if plugged in. This is what poetry can do for language, and for us.

~ Matthew Zapruder, Understanding Poetry Is More Straightforward Than You Think (NY Times, July 10, 2017)

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and, as to mystery, thought of this as well. (highly recommend the book too!)

“Of course, my neurosurgeon stopped the bleeding, removed the tumor, and repaired my brain. I have small titanium plates, screws, and mesh holding it all together. The doctor told me I wouldn’t set off airport metal detectors. But I don’t know why not. I don’t know anything but the most general details about my surgery. I suppose I could do more research, but I prefer the mystery of medicine and healing. I prefer mystery in almost all things. Near the end of my surgery, I dreamed of my parents again. This time, they were standing in that same grassy field with me. Still holding hands, they stood maybe fifty feet away. They weren’t wearing white robes. They didn’t have wings or halos. No, they were both dressed in the same clothes in which they’d been buried. My mother’s favorite turquoise suit was simply tailored and beautiful, and my father’s favorite sweatpants and Geronimo T-shirt looked comfortable and sloppy. They looked like the people I used to know. I waved hello. They smiled, waved good-bye, and walked away through the tall grass. I wasn’t sad to see them go. I knew it was time to wake. And so I did.”

~ Sherman Alexie, “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir” (Little, Brown and Company, 2017)

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