The logic of wonder
A matter of perspective
Everyone—including me—ooh’ed and ahh’ed when the moon held back the tides of light, like the walls of the Red Sea straining against the outstretched staff of Moses. And we gushed to see sunlight break loose, cascading through that widening crack. The moment felt mantled with significance, overshadowed by mystery.
Could we be more irrational?
Let’s look at this event scientifically: nothing more—or less—than the geometrical precision of matter in motion, aligned with the optics of perspective. Perfectly predictable.
Is it scarcity, then, that inflates the price tag of meaning? A collector’s edition experience, until August 2044?
Perhaps the untimely semblance of night … darkness peeking from behind the curtain and blocking the stage light, until shooed back to wait for its cue?
Save your attentive amazement, my friends, for the uncalculable ways of a wave on the sand, an eagle in the air, the serpent on a rock.
Even the firefly’s blinking dance, when we watch, is more worthy of goosebumps.
()(*)()
Note: The "S" line of the poem references Proverbs 30:18-19 ... thought that deserved a mention lest I be liable for biblical plagiarism!
About the Creator
Sonia Heidi Unruh
I love: my husband and children; all who claim me as family or friend; the first bite of chocolate; the last blue before sunset; solving puzzles; stroking cats; finding myself by writing; losing myself in reading; the Creator who is love.
Keep reading
More stories from Sonia Heidi Unruh and writers in Poets and other communities.
Can You Drive a Ford Fiesta Through a Desert?
I’m flying down the B1 highway from Windhoek to Keetmanshoop with a map and a boot full of camping gear. I’m excited for the first stop of my Namibian road trip: the Quiver Tree Forest. I spot the sign and turn onto the C17, off the tarmac and onto the gravel. I’ll be there soon; it’s only ten miles or so. I am unprepared for what comes next. The car slides and slips across the road. I am not fully in control anymore. I slow to a crawl. The car judders and shudders, the noise deafening, the vibrations rattling the teeth in my skull. It takes me around an hour to drive the ten miles. I arrive at the campsite relieved to be in one piece, even if it feels like all my bones have been shaken slightly out of place. I will later learn that this is what happens when the gravel road becomes “corrugated”, and that the roads authority goes round once a week to “grade” them. Seems I arrived about 6 days after the grader had last been round.
By Jenifer Nim2 days ago in Wander
Comments (7)
I liked the inclusion of the S line!
Your words are worthy of goosebumps! 😱 I'm gushing about how you just pulled this out of your sleeve. I don't want this challenge to end! There are so many incredible entries!!!
I think these things are all worthy of amazement, let's embrace it where ever it comes! Great contemplation, I really enjoyed it. There is definitely something in scarcity.
Well-wrought! I suspect that the phenomenal world is an interface with the Divine, so that any event can be significant to anyone at any time. One can find sudden meaning in the erratic flight of birds while another just witnesses a beautiful spectacle without significance and yet another sees nothing at all; head down, lost in their own thoughts... Life has a way of arranging itself for the discerning mind. As for the Bible, it's public property, and considering the number of revisions of any sacred text, should be understood not as revealed or inspired, but as revealing or inspiring for the needs of any respective individual seeker. This would seem to me to be the way to short-circuit the sycophancy that so often breeds war.
So much beauty on this earth, why on Earth are we looking at the wonder in the sky? Like this, Sonia.
no - I don't think the disclaimer was necessary (although others might argue); as we read and explicate work, it's our responsibility to at least try to understand what the writer is intending. I'm more curious about the juxtaposition of the scientific examination you call for and your use of Biblical (albeit veiled) allusion
Awesome!!!💕❤️❤️