By John Brantingham
Today’s miracle is that last night’s rain melted the snow. All that water flowed downhill until the marsh flooded up to where I stand at the side of the road, little waves lapping my shoes, the sound of a heron echoing off tree trunks around me. Today’s miracle is the tiny rings of raindrops on the surface of the marsh, and the dance they make in my eyes. Today’s miracle is me, here, in this place thinking about rain and herons and marshes. Today’s miracle is the living now, precious and real as every other moment I have ever known.
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John Brantingham is currently and always thinking about radical wonder. He was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ first poet laureate. His work has been in hundreds of magazines and The Best Small Fictions 2016 and 2022. He has twenty-two books of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction. He is the editor of The Journal of Radical Wonder.