Now we are convinced
No “miracles,” intrusions of supernatural
into natural world, have ever occurred
What, now, might we mean by the word?
The unlikeliest of unexpected windfalls?
The most fortuitous of improbable occurrences?
The eucoincidence of eucoincidences?
On the tongue can the word continue now to carry
the same sense of wonder and magnificence?
It must… Now, it carries much more.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
A Child's Miracle (for Zenhumans)
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We're the super-laugh.
ReplyDeletemiracle - mid-12c., from O.Fr. miracle, from L. miraculum "object of wonder" (in Church L., "marvelous event caused by God"), from mirari "to wonder at," from mirus "wonderful," from *smeiros, from PIE *(s)mei- "to smile, be astonished" (cf. Skt. smerah "smiling," Gk. meidan "to smile," O.C.S. smejo "to laugh;" see smile). Replaced O.E. wundortacen, wundorweorc. The Gk. words rendered as miracle in the English bibles were semeion "sign," teras "wonder," and dynamis "power," in Vulgate translated respectively as signum, prodigium, and virtus.
A joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling. Human, All Too Human (1878). II.202