Miracles

In Martin Espada's poem, "Imagine the Angels of Bread," he imagines miracles. But the thing is, he presents them not as miracles, but as possibilities. In the line, "this is the year that darkskinned men lynched a century ago return to sip coffee quietly with the apologizing descendants of their executioners," this describes the now. But it takes a retrospective look. During slavery in America, if people imagined freedom, it would seem hopeless and unrealistic. But now it's over. Espada goes on to say, "this is the year that cockroaches become extinct, that no doctor finds a roach embedded in the ear of an infant." First off, I didn't know that kids get roaches stuck in their ears. Gross. Aside from that, this possibility seems like a stretch. Like a miracle, even. But this is where Espada makes us believe in miracles. He described earlier how the end of slavery seemed like a miracle, and yet here we are -- why would we not have an end to roach infestation? He sums up miracles as happenings so good that people think of them as impossible. For example, he describes extermination camps. People in the camps for years tend to lose hope, to submit. But Espada says, "if the shutdown of extermination camps began as imagination of a land without barbed wire or the crematorium, then this is the year." This idea proves miracles. The start of the end of suffering begins with the mere thought of happiness. With this logic, anything is possible.
With this logic, suffering is just the beginning of happiness. But if you take this idea and flip it around, you can say that happiness is just the beginning of suffering, which is how most cynics see the world. In Qebehseneuf, Albert Goldbarth takes on this view when he writes, "love being foreplay for loss." (88) Yes, the beginning of one thing is also the start of its opposite, based on mere thought. But isn't a miracle in itself to know that everything soon becomes something else, something that feels so different it's like you're living another life? Isn't it a miracle we get to experience the entire human spectrum?