Vase

by Rachel Levine

I am taking what I thought would be a short cut through a forested part of the city, only it isn’t working as planned. I follow the fence, trying to locate a breach as I walk further and further from my intention. I reflect on the hints and allegations of my life, ruminating on its randomness and my limited abilities to steer and predict outcomes. Everyone has an answer. They closet themselves in the study of scholarly esoterica, enforce a brute Ukranian do or die approach, surrender to cosmic flow, check the position of the retrograde planets, put faith in the orchestration of the higher powers, or refuse to acknowledge anything beyond the most immediate. Their mantras are a temporary litany: Become the most positive person you know, Envision the outcome you want and it will happen, Equanimity, This too shall pass. But I belong to the Church of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and their comfort eventually slides off; I remain stormy and anxious, attached to unreliabilities and probability. All I can do is adjust my perspective to the situation. One transient gave me words I understood. He said, “If you break a vase, it shatters in a million pieces and everything seems random. But when you see the same thing happen in reverse, it makes perfect sense.” At least I prefer laughter.

©Rachel Levine 2006