The Usual Miracle

             (for my daughter)

The day began as it does:
your father rarely washes his dishes.
You packed your bag without a lunch
and had to pack it again.
We arrived at school two minutes before first bell.
There was the usual miracle of your brief,
over the shoulder smile.

It happened on the way home.

The houses on these busy streets
are not the best.
Your father sucks his teeth
when he sees them;

Rusting sprinklers link to cracked hoses
on dandelioned lawns,
Christmas icicles hang from pastel eaves
midsummer.

Location, location, he says,

bereft of wonder--

but in the green morning quiet

dust motes settling through shafts of sun,

he might have changed his mind;

they were just beside the road.
They stretched their graceful heads
down in an elegant geometry of
curves and arcs.
The doe was lush with unborn child.
I pulled to the side and coasted,
the car held its breath;

I thought of you in the silence.

A young buck with budded horns
crossed the street in soft
ebbs and flows, like a river that eddies
around a mossy stone for a moment
and then moves on.

I do believe in synchronicity,
though I forget to tell you--
but to think that I was there,
at that location.

Photo