Photo by Austin Schmidt on Unsplash
“The whole world is a series of miracles, but we’re so used to them we call them ordinary things.” –Hans Christian Andersen
Rise and shine
This morning this morning
hours before the alarm
3:25 am daughter comes to bedroom door
Mommy I need a lozenge my throat is scratchy
Oh wavering reader!
How can I paint this
so you see the brilliance between the layers
of color of hue of tint
and tone?
Sunrise orange—
she can identify a feeling in her body.
Fade to peach—
that took—what? 25 years?
Coral becomes pink,
almost lavender—
she found the words to match the sensation.
Further down, a dusky orchid—
using language not her own
not native
but the one most of us think common.
A language she and I could share—
of this I could once only dream.
(Thank you Adrienne Rich.
You’d love this girl of mine
if you could meet her.*)
Blue, blue morphing into midnight—
Mommy my throat is scratchy.
I think I’m going backwards,
should have begun with white
streaked with lemon,
this sunrise.
I skipped red entirely.
It was dark.
She came to me.
She was light.
Hours before it was visible to most,
she brought dawn.
3:25 am
My throat is scratchy
Oh miracle,
Oh blessed day.
She is 33
and I am fat with pride,
cheeks puffed out
like the balloons hers were
when she smiled
in that picture, four years old
like the first time,
the first the first the first time
My throat is scratchy
she said
Mommy
she came to find me
I need
she said
A lozenge.
She came to my bedroom door.
For this I say—
I sing
I prayed
I am down on my knees
beyond composure—
I say I say
3:25 am.
Sunrise
in the dark
I never went back to sleep
How could !?
The joy too bright too bright
for this I say
Oh day, oh daughter!
Oh goddess of autisms and other permutations
For this I sing
Amen.
–Melinda Coppola
*Adrienne Rich was one of my first favorite poets. Her book “The Dream of a Common Language” still lives among my books on a shelf in my writing area.
In the Old Country