Home > Transformation > Virgin Appears on Highway Viaduct

Virgin Appears on Highway Viaduct

August 31, 2008

The geese have no idea
they are performing a miracle

but the weekend joggers
stop, transfixed:

Can they really walk on water?

My father didn’t
rise from the dead, either—

it just seemed that way,
between the garbled message

(no one said the EKG was flat,
that’s just what I heard) and the fear

that attends on eighty years.
And like the geese

who feel the solidity of ice
beneath the skim of water,

he took his resurrection
for granted, grumbling that he wanted

to go home, there was nothing
wrong. Nothing on the cement of the viaduct

except a water stain, nothing to celebrate
when the geese make it safely to shore, when my father

calls to complain that the power’s out again;
nothing but the daily turn of the skies

above us, and the moment each year
when the lagoon is covered in ice,

before the moment each year when the ice
melts into water and the geese can swim again.

by Susanna Lang

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  1. September 2, 2008 at 8:18 pm

    And like the geese

    who feel the solidity of ice
    beneath the skim of water,

    he took his resurrection
    for granted, grumbling that he wanted

    to go home, there was nothing
    wrong.

    This sticks with me; it’s the heart of the poem. Nice work.

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