The New World Born

They tell me the facts of this and it is a frightening thing, my skin curling
like ash, bones shaken into sand. All that I love will explode or freeze.
Either way, unhappy death awaits and in it all, no meaning. Some sages kneel before
desolation and daven anxiously, breathing out excitement, I-saw-it-coming satisifaction

brought out from an inner god’s diminution. But I choose to leave old angry gods to the
ancient ruins and turn to a soft palm of love, stroking this blessed earth, my wrinkled and
weary cheek, the oak in my mother’s yard that has lived beyond three lifespans and still
stands, a silver quick fish, mica, and other miracles too small for my dull eyes.

Under my skin there lives another small miracle, at the back of my throat a word
too simple for me to say without ducking my head: hope. Because I cannot let the silver
fish die, or my children or children’s children, I resurrect even the most ashen worry
with the breath of belief and say again and again to give my heart relief:

we can turn; we can turn the world, the wheels of life, ourselves. We can be the shift.

— VH McKinnie

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