Hope, Miracles, and Poetry

Some will say there are no miracles today, just those leather-bound, caught up in verses from a time when things were real and true, when Jesus walked among us, healing the likes of me and you. I like to think we can still see much in poetry.

I am not among those who doubt, the weary and distressed, sure that wrong is right and right is wrong, wave their signs, the madding mob, that cocksure throng.

No, to me, what is obvious and always has been, clear as daybreak in the east, sunset in the west, is that God is ever present, ever sure, despite the blur.

When it comes to miracles, permit me to say, from where I sit, there seem a thousand proofs a day. With mercy, each is blessed, unseen angels as our guest.

How often does it happen – someone is frustrated, needs consolation, wishes just for time. Giving it returns the gift a hundredfold, out of fashion, just compassion.

Here’s the thing, that elusive bit about miracles, the heart of honest living: We have them daily because we are needed; they happen the moment we start giving.

Yes, birds in flight are miracles, leaves unfolding from limber limbs, stems now rising, little towers, soon with buds and flowers. Look around, the place is awash in miracles, things about to change, God moving seasons, about to rearrange.

New England poets, Robert Frost, Henry Longfellow, and Emily Dickinson had a way of pondering miracles, the mysteries of life, hope, and change. Wrote Dickinson, in “Hope is a Thing with Feathers” …

“Hope is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –”

There is Longfellow’s poem on children, “The Children’s Hour.” It starts:

“Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise…”

Robert Frost knew joy in little things, like in his “Dust of Snow” …

“The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I rued.”

While slightly off key, more warm than green, I also like Shel Silverstein:

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers…
How did it go?
How did it go?”

Some will say there are no miracles today, just those leather-bound…I like to think there are still plenty to see, and a few captured yet in poetry.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!