Fare Forward Poetry Competition, Third Place
Moved by that Miracle, Beauty
By Andrew Calis
Made as something more than animal,
we long for what we do not know is true.
All we know is small. Appetitive.
Our meditations stretch against our minds.
We find confinement there, or mystery.
My sister is an artist. I asked once how
she knew what to make—taking rounds of wood,
burning them until they sparked
new stories out, making paint and turning dark
to light. She laughed. She said it’s somehow
in the heart already. She draws it out,
like water from a stone, I thought. We need
to see the signs. Look again
at my children’s eyes. See a world
beyond them. See the reflection of the sky,
the clouds like castles. There are larger
places to rest. I know I will not see it all.
But it’s enough; I have seen a part—
have seen the sunrise glow in Shenandoah,
lighting up the morning, spearing gold
through ice-clear air; it was alive. I felt it
shatter me like light first shook the dark.
Andrew Calis is a Palestinian-American poet, teacher, and father. His book of poetry Pilgrimages was praised by James Matthew Wilson for having “the intensity of Hopkins” and for “layer[ing] light on light in hopes of helping us to see.” He has been published in America, Dappled Things, St. Katherine Review, Presence, and elsewhere, and his poem “Arab Men Don’t Cry, My Father Says,” was nominated “Best of the Net.” He was a finalist for the 2023 Zócalo Poetry Prize.
