Poem: February 15, 2019

Thoughts on a Friday Afternoon

I wonder what it's like to live in a castle
and what it's like to be a cat.
I wonder what happened to my purple bike
and what my childhood friends remember.
I wonder how hard it would be to build
a wooden boat that I could take out on a lake,
and I wonder which lake it would be,
what I would pack, who else would come?
I wonder if I'll ever publish a book,
or learn guitar, or visit Norway,
and if I did, I wonder if I would like it.
I wonder what women think when they see me
and how their opinions change after we've talked.
I wonder if I'll ever see war or the fall
of democracy or the rise of a tyrant. I wonder
if I did, what role I would have played
and how I would react and could I be
the tyrant, and if so, what brought this about?
I wonder if I am wrong about the nature
of God, and I wonder if that matters.
I wonder if we live many lives or
just the one or if life is eternal
but somehow consciousness isn't.
I wonder if life is life without consciousness.
I wonder if my mind is actually located
in my brain or if it can be moved.
I wonder who sang the first song and
who told the first story and who drank
the first fermented drop of wine. I wonder
what makes the air smell like an oncoming storm
or what makes the sound of rain so calming.
I wonder how we will heal one another
and what it would mean to be fearless.
I wonder what it would be like to live
without plastic or the Internet or fast food,
and I wonder if efficiency ought to be valued.
I wonder what's buried in my back yard
and if it would be worth it to look.
I wonder what my children think at night
before they go to bed. Do they worry?
And I wonder if I knew, could I help,
and if I helped would it do more harm than good?
I wonder what my students learned and
whether my teachers ever think about me.
I wonder what will surprise me next,
and what will make me look more closely.
I wonder what makes me wonder at all,
and is wondering better than knowing.