Everyday Miracles

It was the kind of accident people will later say, 'It's a miracle no one was killed.' But that was not the word in Marsha's mind, as she drove down an adjacent street. She heard the screech of brakes, the sickening crunch of metal on metal, and, as she turned down that fateful street, the eerie silence beneath the wail of two car alarms. She saw not two cars smashed together, she saw just wreckage and as she groped for her cell phone, her mind calmly said a prayer... She dialed 911. A man was supporting a woman, his right arm around her body, as they limped to the curb and collapsed simultaneously. The operator took Marsha's information. It was only then she saw the teenage boy with blond hair looking straight up into the clear sky, as if he were only a sightseer. The boy tripped once as he staggered over to the couple, and the three of them huddled in a dome-like embrace. Marsha set her cell phone down and prepared to leave her car. She was determined to be of service, somehow. A door creaked, and a man laboriously lifted himself out of the other car. Was this not the very occasion of service presenting itself? She recalled later he was almost bald, he was wearing a torn green shirt, '-and he was incredibly drunk! ' The drunk collapsed onto the opposite curb. dropped head into his hands, and sobbed. He sobbed and wailed with such abandon, Marsha was afraid to approach him. She went to the huddled family of three victims. Sirens, an ambulance, men in white, two squad cars, two officers with pads and pens and questions - the rest of this story is routine business, and routine is never a fit subject for poetry, right? I prefer to go forward to two summers after this trauma: Marsha and her family are renting a cabin on Clam Lake in Wisconsin. It is early morning, before 6 am, and Marsha is standing alone on the cabin deck, pulling her scarlet robe around her body. The air is cold, but the sunlight is remarkably hot on her face and shoulders. Across the way, another woman stands alone on the cabin deck. She waves energetically, 'Isn't this weather miraculous? ' 'It couldn't be better, ' Marsha shouts back. The smile lodged within her breaks out on her face, a wide, laughing smile, and it lingers, as more sunlight pools around her. The rest of that day is made up of vacation routines.