We Who Wait for Miracles
We Who Wait for Miracles
Sarah Spradlin
Lights blink at us
then flicker out,
like they usually do
this time of year
when a storm blows in, it
stirs up the dust and dog hair and shadows
we’re too tired to sweep
out of the living room
again.
We are in the splash zone:
thunderheads barge into dusky ocean sky
with storm spray and smell of rain
on the swelling tide of the rainy season.
Sighing, we sink into our hand-me-down sofa,
lower the mainsails,
watch lightning spin cobwebs in the clouds,
witness water rising in the patio.
For a while,
we sit in reverent silence,
remember three who died,
struck by lightning “en seco”
this time last year,
and the sound of rain on the tin roof
makes us feel safer.
Resurrection
has not come
with the rain,
but we remain,
like smoldering wicks,
tucked far away
from snuffing fingers
hoping for resurrection anyway.
I draw my knees to my chest
hold on tight,
give thanks for the cold,
then stand embraced,
no longer hidden from the face of the wind.
My black-bottomed feet
make mud-puddle tracks
as I wander into the kitchen’s yawning dark.
I strike a match,
then pour milk and hot cocoa mix
into a char-kissed pot,
and wait.
”¿No te da miedo?”
he asks,
and the wind tries to steal his words
before they fumbling reach me:
a tremor, tenderly testing the atmosphere between us
from the cushioned crow’s nest,
wondering if lightning might strike me while I stir.
I am already afraid, so
I say, “No.”
With a cellphone flashlight,
I pour up two mugs
for storm-sick couch surfers to sip.
When I return to the helm,
he says, “Thank you”
I smile and say,
“No problem”
This is all I can give,
in a world that leaves wounds
beyond my skills to heal,
wounds only miracles can heal.
So we sip,
warmed and filled,
while we wait
and watch
for a miracle.
“En seco” — lit. “in dry,” sometimes used when referring to lightning striking before it starts to rain or when the storm is still far off; also used to refer to “stopping someone dead in their tracks” as in “lo paró en seco.”
“¿No te dé miedo?” — “Doesn’t that scare you?”
Sarah Spradlin
Poet & Farmer
Sarah has been published on Story Embers and Kingdom Pen. She released her debut digital chapbook, Beneath the Mango Tree, in Winter 2021. You can read more of her work on her Instagram, @sarah.spradlin.
Photography by Silvio Munoz