Consequential
April 9 2023
Having written this poem
will I be different, somehow?
Learn about myself?
Crystallize a thought?
Ventilate a feeling?
I begin
with these five lines.
So as I write
and with nothing else on the page
there's as yet no way to tell.
Although there is no doubt
that the great events in our lives
— the turning points
and rites of passage,
wars, pestilence, famines —
are always marked
by an unsuspecting before
and consequential after.
Even if, while it's happening
you have no idea
how big this is.
And the before, of course
taken for granted
until it's gone.
But a few words on a page?
A little time later?
Does everything, no matter how small
incrementally change us?
Yet there's the butterfly
in Indonesia
flapping a wing
and changing the world.
There is the road not taken
you took,
the intersection
in time and space
that was next to impossible.
The single word
in the final stanza
you found yourself stuck on.
5 minutes
lost in thought
that delayed my departure.
And 10 minutes later
when the brakes failed
on the tractor trailer
at the 4-way stop
I would have crossed.
Racing the clock
with just a brief glance both ways.
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