Sara without an H > this collection: Pennies From Heaven > Awakening > Miracles > Love > Secrets > Humanity > Beauty > Gender > Family > Connection > Revolution >> next collection: Major Arcana
Sonnet on Miracles
Now through the looking glass with no way back,
You promised me a rose garden... What's this?
Let's paint it red, don't let them paint it black,
When neither of us wants that grim abyss.
You've pulled yourself out from the rabbit hole,
The caterpillar's toadstool you have braved;
Turn demagogues to donkeys! Save your soul!
Turn wine back into water, now you're saved.
You promised me a miracle and so
All paths marked "out" will always lead back in.
Turn Wonderland contrariwise and grow;
In growing don't be scared to shed your skin.
I wouldn't even try to call your bluff;
Survival is pure miracle enough.
© Sara Nicola Ruth
Big Up
⛱ Lewis Carroll (1832-98). I’ve mashed up ideas from both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871): the Queen of Hearts demanding that the roses be painted red, the caterpillar and the rabbit hole from Wonderland; the anti-logic paths in the flower garden from Through the Looking Glass, “contrariwise” being what Tweedledee and Tweedledum say.
⛱ “(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden” is a song written by Joe South, best known as recorded by country music singer Lynn Anderson (1970).
⛱ “Paint It Black” is a song released by The Rolling Stones on 13 May 1966 as the first single from the US version of their fourth album Aftermath.
⛱ Simple Minds, from “Promised You A Miracle” (1982) the first single from their fifth studio album New Gold Dream:
Life mirrors a cure
Everything is possible
With promises
Everything is possible
Promised you a miracle
Belief is a beauty thing
Promises promises
As golden days break wondering
[The original vid for this song is the most 80s thing that has EVER happened. Enjoy!]
⛱ Isabel Allende, from The House Of The Spirits (1985) Chapter 14:
She gave up, deciding to end this torture once and for all. She stopped eating, and only when her feebleness became too much for her did she take a sip of water. She tried not to breathe or move, and began eagerly to await her death. She stayed like this for a long time. When she had nearly achieved her goal, her Grandmother Clara, whom she had invoked so many times to help her die, appeared with the novel idea that the point was not to die, since death came anyway, but to survive, which would be a miracle.
[I could have posted a clip from the movie version but it wasn’t great, and I couldn’t find the right chapter of the audiobook in English. It’s possible to use the auto-translate subtitles function on YouTube from the Spanish version La casa de los espíritus.]
Sara without an H > this collection: Pennies From Heaven > Awakening > Miracles > Love > Secrets > Humanity > Beauty > Gender > Family > Connection > Revolution >> next collection: Major Arcana
Sara Nicola Ruth 