Wonder Is Scalable
The ant carries three times its weight and doesn't know it's impressive. I watched this hunched over a sidewalk during the worst year of my life. Wonder fit there too. Funny how shriveled I felt underneath what I now laugh away, relentless locker room talk— All that to say, the ant didn’t mind my ugly. Wonder came in small denominations at first — my skirt in the breeze, the sky going pink, gratitude arriving like a surprise kiss at a red light. Then I found my gills at the pool. Heart loud. Body electric. Mind completely clear. Then a room full of strangers learning to speak to each other because my book prompted them to. Then I started living. And I tasted it.
Wow, my this is absolutely amazing, wonder fit there too.* Three words and the whole poem is already complete. But then you keep going and it just keeps expanding. The ant carrying three times its weight without knowing it is impressive, watched by someone who felt the opposite of impressive, and neither of them minding the other. That is such a tender, unexpected mercy.
Wonder came in small denominations at first. Yes. That is exactly how it arrives. Not all at once. A skirt in the breeze. The sky going pink. A surprise kiss at a red light. And then the gills at the pool, and then the room full of strangers, and then, finally, I started living. And I tasted it. The escalation is so carefully built. You earn that ending completely. The range of you, from the grief poem for the six year old to this, wonder in small denominations. That is a writer fully alive in her work. MashaAllāh, my friend. ❤️🔥🥰😍🫶🏻🌹✨️🌟
An awakening. Beautiful, Mymy!