SURPRISE

 

The world is full of surprises:
the four brown wolves loping along the shore,
the grey owl, perched in a tree alongside the trail,
her gaze meeting mine - no startling, no fear,
just a placid gaze that says "I am here
and you are there, and we are Looking."

I don't know why I was surprised
that someone who seemed so close
could remove herself so completely,
leaving the "why?" hanging, unanswered.
Perhaps forever?

I did not expect, in my declining years, 
to see fascism rising around the globe:
the fascism I have spent my life studying,
believing it could never happen here.
And yet it has.

I did not expect, having been born
at the end of WWII,
that I would be watching a brutal war
on my tv screen: such suffering imposed
unjustly, the behaviour so cruel;
or the random mass shootings by people
so enraged they want to impose their pain
on innocent others.

I used to believe that good always
triumphed, that light outshone the darkness,
that everything would come out right
in the end. That we would save the planet,
and ourselves.

I wanted to be surprised by life,
and I have been. I have. Just not
in any of the ways that I expected.
Just not in any of the ways that I
once dreamed.

Inspired by "I Wanted to Be Surprised" by Jane Hirschfield. The italicized lines are hers.