And This, That You Did Accomplish, You Don’t Know Either

Would it be, would it really be better?
Is how the interrogation begins.
You try to turn around inside your skull.

It’s easy to read out the benefits
Of sheer good fortune and hard-earned success.
They’re enumerable, for the most part.

The costs are much trickier to assess,
Since they go beyond any accounting.
A cost can be hidden inside a gain,

Dependent on the gain to be a loss.
When people puzzle over happiness
Among the powerful, rich, and famous,

They’re seeking out the costs peculiar
To such success. And there are other costs,
Albeit hypothetical at best.

Ask yourself of anything you hope for,
From the most selfish to the most selfless,
Ask yourself carefully and bring to bear

All you can of your imagination,
Would that world really be a better world
Than whatever you happen to live in?

You know you can’t say. You can’t be certain.
You can’t say, and yet you can’t stop thinking
About altering this to your liking.

Haste

There’s a title you keep withdrawing,

As haunted by change as anyone.

You start off determined to finish,

But what you manage isn’t nearly

A match for its intended flourish.

There’s a woman in front of a truck

On the sunny side of the highway

On a pleasant autumn afternoon,

And as you’re driven by where she stands,

You wonder how her life seems to her.

Is the breeze that stirs her bangs too hot?

Is she at all content with her day?

You want this poem to be titled Waste,

But that title would be such a waste.