The Ordinary Miracle

After a dish of porridge, a milky coffee, The sun being out for once I took a walk in the woods beside the river The sun sent little boats along the water Like ferries carrying mirrors of pure gold It was warm as melting butter, That in itself was a miracle in my Northland High on a knoll overlooking the rickshaw waves I sat between a fir tree and a birch Needing to be nowhere or somewhere A floating moment of freedom What happened next was this The birch leaves, elfin green, Danced in the sun like fireflies And as I looked, it seemed I disappeared Became, as it were, a nothing A speck of happiness, a part of a joyful Whole It may have lasted seconds or an hour Then I was drawn again into my cell of flesh My flawed and ageing sack of bones and failings The sun was still as warm, the river shining No blind man saw. No corpse rose from the dead An ordinary miracle, nothing to shift the spheres But there it sits, forever in my head