A Poem for Monday

BY CHANCE,

OF COURSE

WHILE ATTENDING THE ANNUAL CONVOCATION

OF CAUSE THEORISTS AND BIGBANGISTS AT THE

LOCAL PROVINCIAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY, THE

MAD FARMER INTERCEDES FROM THE BACK ROW

"Chance" is a poor word among

the mazes of causes and effects, the last

stand of these all-explainers who,

backed up to the first and final Why,

reply, "By chance, of course!" As if

that tied up ignorance with a ribbon.

In the beginning something by chance

existed that would bang and by chance

it banged, obedient to the by-chance

previously existing laws of existence

and banging, from which the rest proceeds

by logic of cause and effect also

previously existing by chance? Well,

when all that happened who was there?

Did the chance that made the bang then make

the Bomb, and there was no choice, no help? 

Prove to me that chance did ever

make a sycamore tree, a yellow-

throated warbler nesting and singing

high up among the white limbs

and the golden leaf-light, and a man

to love the tree, the bird, the song

his life long, and by his love to save

them, so far, from all the machines.

By chance? Prove it, then, and I

by chance will kiss your ass.

--Wendell Berry

Pardon the language. Persevere through your Monday. Take time to enjoy something real.

Happy Reading,

   David