When someone you love dies,
an infinity of branching futures
reduce to probability zero.
Entire universes collapse into nonexistence,
and you are left, instead,
with a world you never expected,
a future strange and unknown,
shimmering with new dangers and disappointments,
glimmering with faint hopes and distant delights.
A future that calls you
to let go of your past,
to stop living in universes that no longer exist,
and to be fully present in this one,
which does not yet quite fit you,
and which you do not yet quite fit.
To take the chance
that this awkward, improbable new world
may somehow be your destiny after all,
may even, perhaps, be better than the previous ones,
should you manage to make it so
by being better than your former self.
Strange, I know.
But what is really bizarre is that
when you love someone new,
exactly the same thing happens.
©2016,2020 Howard A. Landman
Energy and Time 