Gary takes the red pebble from the stream then sits on the bank out of sight of his mother. It turns orange as it dries. Yesterday, his mother told him what a miracle is; here is a pebble transforming itself. He puts it in his pocket and looks to see a snake walking on water to cross upstream. There are things beyond his understanding, which is what his mother said a miracle is. He sighs because he knows he will understand the miracle of stones and snakes. Next year he starts at Clinton Elementary School. They will explain everything there.

John Brantingham

was the first poet laureate of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (east of Fresno, CA), and now lives in Jamestown, New York. He is the founder and general editor of The Journal of Radical Wonder, and the author of 21 books of poetry, memoir, and fiction including his latest, Days of Recent Divorce (Arroyo Seco Press, 2023), Life: Orange to Pear (Bamboo Dart Press, 2020), and Kitkitdizzi (Bamboo Dart Press, 2022), the latter a collaboration which features artworks by his wife, Ann Brantingham.

John’s poems, stories, and essays are published in hundreds of magazines and journals. His work has appeared on Garrison Keillor’s daily show, The Writer’s Almanac; has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize; and was selected for publication in The Best Small Fictions anthology series for 2022 and 2016.

Author’s website: www.johnbrantingham.com/

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ A Walk Among Giants by Kendall Johnson, a review of John and Ann Brantingham’s book Kitkitdizzi: A Non-Linear Memoir of the High Sierra, in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 16, January 2023)

⚡ Finnegan’s (Fiancée Goes McArthur Park on His Birthday) Cake, flash fiction by Brantingham in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 9, August 2021), which was subsequently selected for publication in The Best Small Fictions 2022 anthology

⚡ Objects of Curiosity, a collection of his ekphrastic poems (Sasse Museum of Art, 2020)