irregularities

 

Irregularities

Sitting here with the white sea disintegrating

on the narrowing stretch of a wide, curving beach,

one is struck by the regularities of motion

which still, within limits, are self validating,

because each wave breaks with a predetermined reach

but is still a somewhat different edition

to the rest, despite its predictability.

Yet life, though it may exhibit certain rhythms,

still maintains within itself unsuspected

breaks and sweeps and such events are never pretty,

for life is not the same and comes through varied stems

that twist and turn and spurt in ways that many dread.

It is more like an examination for which

one could not prepare: the context and the questions,

the situations and the challenges always

without alternatives to which one wants to switch.

One may navigate a thousand such transitions

but the next will be hidden by a deeper haze.

A K Whitehead

Purston, Pontefract, Yorkshire