Habituation

Miracles do not shout.
They rush quietly unnoticed.

Morning arrives
light travels ninety-three million miles
to fall without applause on the table,
on the cup, energizing the planet
We call it ordinary
and move on.

We are busy
not with survival, not with wonder,
but with rehearsals of old arguments,
with looping anxieties,
with the theater of thoughts
that produce nothing and demand everything.

Meanwhile, beneath the noise,
a congress of cells convenes without sleep.
Molecules maneuver with precision
that would shame our proudest machines.
Ions cross membranes thinner than belief.
Proteins fold like origami sworn to duty.
Errors are corrected before we ever notice danger.

Each cell
more intricate than a space shuttle,
more reliable than our intentions
asks for nothing.
No recognition.
No gratitude.
Just conditions to keep going.

And from this silent labor
arises consciousness
this impossible flame
balanced on chemistry,
this brief window
through which the universe looks at itself
and says nothing,
waiting for us to speak.

But we squander it.
We spend thought like loose change
on grievances, on schedules,
on the dead weight of the trivial.
We live as though awareness were cheap,
as though being alive at all
were not our rarest experience.

Familiarity dulls the blade of astonishment.
Habit guides the extraordinary
to pass as background noise.
The heart beats.
The mind imagines.
The cosmos holds.

And we miss it
not because it is hidden,
but because it is constant.

The tragedy is not that beauty fades,
but that it persists
while we are elsewhere,
thinking useless thoughts,
unaware that at this very moment
miracles fuel an imagination
that notices nothing of consequence.