Mark Mansfield
Round and Round and Round
I can’t make any progress
except from one accident to the next.
Nicolas de Stael
One accident to the next is how it goes,
in fits and starts and stops until we find
that where we’re headed, no one really knows.
A light goes out. Does this portend? Suppose
it does: behold humankind’s grand design;
one accident to the next is how it goes.
What small progress we make most often shows
in our own behaviour after we resign
that where we’re headed, no one really knows.
What we decide is not decided so
much as labelled such, then redefined.
One accident to the next is how it goes.
Killed in action, drowned, an overdose,
diagnosed with death, the bottom line’s
that where we’re headed, no one really knows.
The natural cause of all this, I propose,
is an odd effect that most of us divine—
one accident to the next is how it goes.
Where we’re headed, no one really knows.
Page(s) 12
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