The Miracle

Every now and then a fishing pole

turns into a lightning rod

and the rented canoe is welded

to the dime-bright surface of a lake.

He asked for it, some jerk at the bait house

will be saying next month

when the tragic aspect has worn off the story

like an electrical charge.

And maybe he did-the sound of your breath this minute

is thin as a skater's blade

which bears the whole weight of the world

colossally up,

yet the skater loves to go circling out

onto thinner and farther ice.

And men who climb mountains,

though they go slow, using ropes, up the slope,

though they still edge back from it,

don't they go looking for their fall?

For the thrill of the meeting

with more than they bargained for?

Don't lovers keep seeking,

through kiss after kiss,

the heart-stopping moment

when flirting completely converts them?

Death is the miracle

with the worst reputation

whose memory we nonetheless seek,

instinctively trying to learn where we are

by touching the place where we aren't.

Imagine the moment of insight

when the climber who finds himself

falling

lets go and begins to fly.

When the man who was casting for sunfish or bass,

but hoping to catch something bigger,

reached up his arm as if asking.