I don’t use the word ‘holy’ often, if ever. I prefer ‘miracle’, ‘gift’, ‘magic’. It comes down to the same thing of course. It’s a position more than a word, really. Whatever. Point is, this morning, the day after my ‘magic day’,  I opened one of the chapbooks I recently received and the poem staring at me had the [I thought] unfortunate title of : ‘What is Holy’. I read it anyway. Turns out it contains two lines that changed my DNA slightly.

What poems do.

Also proves that ‘magic’ cannot be contained to single days.

What is Holy 

 The white pages of a book.

The many ways a hand can open
     and close.

The brief darkness
     of a plane in front of the sun,
lives suspended overhead.

The way plants eat light—
     that is holy.

The endless voice of the ocean.

The streets of early morning
     when love lights shine from the windows
of the elderly.

The eyes of someone who has lost love.

It is in the breath, and gathers into
     small sounds:
bread, home, yes.

When you bite into an apple and taste rain.
     That is.

— Rosemary Griebel (from  Yes, Frontenac House, 2011; and The Johnston House Literary Salon Series)