To the Poet, On Her Dilemma

Do you wonder
where to begin?

Should you begin
with the way the bridge stands
at the straits gleaming?

Or with children
glimpsing bluegills?

Consider the bridge: a miracle-lace
of steel and concrete wrought
by warm, rough men; their hands.

Some fell. Plunged and drowned.

Now drive across, awed by winter
sunlight and by ladders rising
up to it. Plates of silver

pancake ice drifting
over depths below.

But, children glimpsing bluegills
near shore in August, wading
in the reeds. That’s a miracle too.

The way they’re knit together,

small packages of souls
and bones.  That they can stand
and see the sun touching
scales in the shallows.
Heaven’s light.



Poet's note: A poem about not always knowing where to begin telling the story of a life, or a day, or a moment. A poem claiming a place for darkness and light, and for the impersonal and the personal, in writing. Photos are of the Mackinaw Bridge courtesy the Library of Congress (public domain), and of our three miracles at Burntside Lake (personal collection).