Miracle

The Virgin Mary
appeared to Eddie
when he was
ten years old.


She appeared to him
in his father’s tool shed,
late one spring afternoon,
on an ordinary day -
it wasn’t even Sunday,
Eddie would later say.


But, there she was,
with her modest smile,
wearing a crown of stars,
standing amongst the
hammers and saws,
and coffee cans and jars
filled with ten penny nails,
and various nuts and bolts.


No one believed
Eddie had seen
the Mother of God,
in the tool shed,
while he was there
working on his bike.


No one believed
that it happened -
not his family
not his friends -
even Eddie, after time,
wondered if it had
really happened,
or had the sun
been in his eyes.


But, still…I can’t help
thinking -
after all these years,
that no one
thought it strange
that on the very day
Eddie claimed
to have seen the
Virgin Mary,
his father found three
dead copperhead snakes
in the tool shed,
just where Eddie said
Mary had been standing.

Who Counts Leaves

or counts owls
on their fingertips

or lost words
on their tongues…

what is the point
they would say –

but, late today
I heard a sound

rise up from the edge
of a half frozen pond

something primitive
yet recognized and

familiar to the world
like the skeletons of

weeds that shook
the sound across the

snow covered fields
in beats and measures

of steady clicks –
groups of two, three

and four measured
beats or perhaps more

nothing tactile
but palpable -

like true harmony
urging on the

next
minute
of
time….