Miracles

Miracles. They glide by us every day but when we became teen agers we stopped seeing them. And now that we're adults, we don't even remember that miracles were ever a part of our lives.

Today I drove under a rainbow. One end started in downtown Charleston and the other end reached across the harbor to James Island, bouncing it's prismatic colors across the sky. In fact, it's pale twin glistened above it, a double rainbow. I've only seen a handful of those in my life. And what surprised me today, other than rounding the bend by Ellis Creek to come face to face with this small miracle, was how many people in cars around me didn't bother to look up. For the most part, their cell phones seemed to hold more attraction than did this vision.

I am still thrilled by the sight of a rainbow, always unexpected. And excited when a dragonfly visits me. Blue wings drumming the air. My mother once tied a string to a dragonfly and threaded the string through my grandmother's kitchen screen door so I could sit safely inside, holding the end of that string, while my pet dragonfly buzzed on the otherside of the door.

I've watched moonflowers slowly open when the night sky sparkles above. The flowers glow white- a white that glow-in-the-dark colors can never mimic.

Venus flytraps enthrall me. I cannot bear to watch a naive fly succomb to the flytrap's allure. Man eating plants. Science Fiction in my back yard.

I hold crystals to the sunlight and watch prisms dance across the floor. I gather precious Southern snowflakes on my tongue. I gasp when I see a harvest moon hung low in the sky, peeking betwen pine boughs.

I contemplate how the universe could ever have begun. And watch stars twinkle and blink at me.

And I wink back.