Ordinary Miracle

by Barbara Kingsolver

I have mourned lost days

When I accomplished nothing of importance.

But not lately.

Lately under the lunar tide

Of a woman's ocean, I work

My own sea-change:

Turning grains of sand to human eyes.

I daydream after breakfast

While the spirit of egg and toast

Knits together a length of bone

As fine as a wheatstalk.

Later, as I postpone weeding the garden

I will make two hands

That may tend a hundred gardens.

I need ten full moons exactly

For keeping the animal promise.

I offer myself up: unsaintly, but

Transmuted anyway

By the most ordinary miracle.

I am nothing in this world beyond the things one woman does.

But here are eyes that once were pearls.

And here is a second chance where there was none.