It Could Always Be Worse - March 10 2022

 

It Could Always Be Worse

March 10 2022

Like the weather

there is only so far ahead

you can reliably predict.

Or go back

and understand what led to this,

the many ramifications

of a single forgettable act.

Each decision

contingency

stroke of fate,

an extra second

early or late.

Like our fateful intersection

in time and space

where the streets cross

and there was black ice

and that tree blocked the stop-sign from view.

What if I'd left a little earlier,

or hadn't paused

to check I'd locked the door?

What if a mile up the road

I hadn't been slowed

by the bent lady 

crossing on the red?

What if yesterday

I hadn't answered that call,

or last week

lost track of time

talking it out?

What fraction of a second

and we would have missed,

you slipping by

by just an inch?

Such long odds

I feel as of the gods

must have it in for me.

But if not this, then something else;

just as improbable,

but perhaps of higher consequence

than a bent fender, and stiff neck.

Could be worse, I said to myself

trying to keep perspective.

Which sounds, at first, half empty

but is really half full,

notwithstanding

my pessimistic bent.

Because it could always be worse

no matter what.

And what a way to have met,

exchanging numbers

in a cold intersection

on the adrenaline high 

of a brush with death.

Who knew

it would end up warm and sunny

despite the dreadful weather

that fateful day?

I'm pleased to have managed to include some complicated ideas — chaos theory; the concept of low probability/high consequence events; allusions to world views coloured by beliefs like faith, fate, and feelings of persecution; the pattern-seeking human brain that relentlessly tries to connect cause and event; and perspective-taking in the manner of the classic Stoics — in a poem that turns out be an innocuous romantic comedy: the “cute meet” origin story of a budding romance. I find poetry to be a poor vehicle for complicated or philosophical ideas. I think poems do best when they focus on physical sensational, feelings, deeply personal reflections: when they're more visceral than intellectual, more affectively engaging than cognitively challenging.

Frankly, the end snuck up on me as well! But then, I almost never know where I'm going when I begin a poem. Usually, it takes me by the hand as I write, and leads me unwittingly there.