Sunday, March 29, 2020

That Someone

Those of you who understand
how to calculate probability
have an advantage over me,
a right-brained (or is it left?) type
who can lose his way and sometimes fall asleep

when numbers and symbols are involved,
each one laying claim
to a particular undeniable authority
which, when joined with the others,
can lead the way to, say, curing cancer,

or putting Armstrong on the Moon,
and now they have proven that every one of us--
let me say that again—every. one. of. us.
will lose someone we know
to this virus ravaging the globe.

In a way, I like the way this is being put.
Saying every one of us will lose someone we know
is a clever way of leaving to our imagination
that because everyone will lose someone they know
we have more than a few chances to be that someone.

It's at times like this I realize
my imagination is not my best friend.

                                                                                                                m.d. paust

4 comments:

  1. Wow! This is great Mathew. Terrifying, isn't it, when a nightmarish scenario read somewhere in a novel comes true?

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    1. Thanks, Neeru. Here's hoping we survive this living novel unscathed!

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  2. I have decided it is best not to think about the percentages, because in the end it is like everything else, that small percentage could include you and your loved ones or not. It feels like when I was pregnant. I knew that problems were unlikely but that does not make them any less scary.

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    1. I hear you, Tracy. Angela was 42 when she was pregnant with Sarah, and we were concerned that our ages could adversely affect the baby. The amniocentesis showed no abnormality, but we couldn't be certain until Sarah was born healthy and with none of the dreaded congenital problems that can affect babies with older parents. Sarah is out your way now, working for Netflix in L.A., altho there is no filming going on right now obviously.

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