change is a miracle?

my baby moses 6.5 years ago--is this change miraculous or heartbreaking?

i'm working on grading for an online class today.  last semester,  i thought i had the grading system all figured out (finally), then the platform changed to a new and improved platform, which was good, but all the stuff i had worked so hard to figure out washed away and i had to adjust, & figure new stuff out.

this kind of thing is frustrating, no? especially when you've spent a lifetime seeking stasis, & then you finally realize stasis is not a) possible or b) desireable.  you need to do some big work to deal with this realization.

driving home yesterday i listened to chapter one of walden pond.  aside from hdt's weirdness about "savages" and "hindoos", and a few other questionable stances, he's got some pretty cool ideas (some even borrowed from the "hindoos" themselves), like this one:

“All change is a miracle to contemplate, but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.” 

today i'm thinking:  really?  ALL change?  even the sudden fail of my online gradebook?  even the impingement in my left shoulder?  even--well,

you don't wanna hear about THAT.


even though today i'm so frustrated i want to punch a wall, i'm trying to step back and test thoreau's hypothesis--really?  all change is miraculous?  why and how?

here's what another poet says:


Trying to Name What Doesn't Change
 
By Naomi Shihab Nye b. 1952
 

Roselva says the only thing that doesn’t change   

is train tracks. She’s sure of it.

The train changes, or the weeds that grow up spidery   

by the side, but not the tracks.

I’ve watched one for three years, she says,

and it doesn’t curve, doesn’t break, doesn’t grow.

Peter isn’t sure. He saw an abandoned track

near Sabinas, Mexico, and says a track without a train   

is a changed track. The metal wasn’t shiny anymore.   

The wood was split and some of the ties were gone.

Every Tuesday on Morales Street

butchers crack the necks of a hundred hens.   

The widow in the tilted house

spices her soup with cinnamon.

Ask her what doesn’t change.

Stars explode.

The rose curls up as if there is fire in the petals.   

The cat who knew me is buried under the bush.

The train whistle still wails its ancient sound   

but when it goes away, shrinking back

from the walls of the brain,

it takes something different with it every time.

& here's a little thing to make you (& me)  feel a little more patient via c.: