Ironically, he sat at the computer

using his otherwise rarely used

hand when he read the Poem of

the Day. It started with a quote

 

by Linnaeus: If a tree dies, plant

another one. How positive. The

poem was about perseverance in

the face of sadness, tragedy even

 

— a woman tending to a dying man

who had lost the use of one side of

his body. The dying man said, look-

ing at his good, left hand, “Look,

 

what a miracle this hand is; seventy

years I hardly used it, and now the

things it’s learning to do!” Was the

Poem of the Day sent his way with a

 

greater purpose than that he was a

subscriber? Synchronicity, providence,

that word irony again? The seventy-

year-old man who sat at the comput-

 

er reading the Poem of the Day had

temporarily lost use of his left hand

and he certainly wasn’t dying,

but the poem reminded the man

 

to plant another tree, so he told

his sympathetic wife who had had

to listen to his complaining for the

last seven days that he would comp-

 

lain no more, but would look at the

wonder of his right hand and say,

“Look, what a miracle this hand is…,“

and then the pain shot down his

 

arm like a lightning strike followed

by a thunderous explosion or a down-

hill racer hell bent for glory or hell

and he cried a wimpy cry, “Honey….”