Lightning Strikes, Once, Twice, Three Times.
Sometimes friends drift apart,
and it gets to the point
where "what's up?" and "How's it going?"
have no real meaning.
Sometime later they can used again,
as the meaningless nothings
of small talk.
We are all in our way programmed for this,
with senseless words and phrases of banal social behaviour.
My sister-in-law is flying out from Winnipeg
for the funeral of a nephew.
And all I could mutter
were useless words about how terrible it was,
that someone so young should be lost,
that someone so young should die. I think I said pass away.
Sometimes I can't make my words sound as I feel;
yet, for things like this I cannot feel
as those who must cope with this subtraction of a valued human being
from their lives.
As Liz flies this way,
I fly out to Winnipeg.
One of my resolutions for 2006
was to make more meaningful plans
and see them through.
I plan to learn how to dance,
and to dance for the rest of my life.
I've meant to visit my brother
since he moved to Winnipeg.
This weekend Winnipeg is hosting
Triplexxx,
The prairie Lindy exchange, part trois.
I thought it would be neat to visit Isaak,
Liz, Sarah and Tang,
and then dance some.
But now I just feel selfish and pointless.
Life is so very fleeting.
Last Saturday I was in a motor vehicle accident.
A driver didn't see a stop sign
at a pedestrian controlled intersection,
and crossed in front of my vehicle before
I could make it stop.
If there had been anyone in the passenger side seats
of her car, they would have been seriously hurt,
or dead.
Her car spun wildly and struck down a cyclist,
a random cascading event, entropy made manifest.
Melissa, O'Mel-mia, was in my passenger seat,
held in by a seat-belt,
and the faith we all have
in the rules of the road.
Rob, the more cynical of the Krahn foremen,
remarked that girlfriends
are a waste of time,
and money. "Who needs them?" he asked.
rhetorically, I suppose.
Maybe we can make rules for these things,
and decide what's right and what's wrong,
what's worthwhile, and what isn't.
But somethings just happen,
and that this is,
no matter how unready the unready may be.
How very unready.
What would I have done if she had been hurt
riding in my vehicle?
Would I be lost and distraught? As hurt emotionally,
as I am physically?
The doctor called it "soft-tissue" damage,
and wrote a prescription for pain-killers
and x-rays. What would be soft-tissue damage
of the soul? I would sleep on it,
but I can't sleep.
And again, I have pain and doubt.
I'm not sure what I can accomplish with them.
Once, while planting trees in Saik'uz,
a mighty storm struck,
knocking down trees three times my age.
I shouted out to the world,
for shits and giggles,
that I wanted to be hit with lightning.
I walked an entire six kilometres,
with my shovel high above my head
daring the skies to deal their worst.
There are worse things then to tempt the 'verse
with arrogance and ignorance,
but no indictment so telling
as the exposure of personal impotence
in the affairs of the world.