Life & Wisdom Quote by Edwin Markham

Markham’s astonishment isn’t decorative; it’s a moral stance disguised as wonder. By calling life itself “incredible,” he flips the usual hierarchy of awe. Miracles aren’t rare interruptions to reality; reality is the miracle, running continuously and mostly ignored. The questions land like a soft interrogation of modern certainty: you can build systems, doctrines, and progress narratives, but you still can’t explain why anything is here at all.

The phrasing matters. “Sun-illuminated universe” is cosmic, almost scientific in its scale, but it’s immediately grounded in sensory intimacy: “green earth under our feet.” That pivot is the trick. Markham insists that metaphysical vertigo and ordinary perception belong in the same sentence. The subtext is anti-cynical. In an era being remade by industrial expansion, urban crowding, and the bureaucratization of daily life, he’s pulling attention back to what those forces flatten: direct contact with existence. The “why” isn’t a request for theology so much as an alarm bell against habituation.

As a poet associated with social conscience (his name is tethered to labor-era moral urgency), Markham’s wonder also carries consequence. If being here is improbable, then treating life as cheap becomes indefensible. The line quietly argues for reverence without dogma: gratitude as a politics, attention as resistance. It works because it refuses to resolve the mystery; it makes the mystery feel like a responsibility.