With great regularity, I am privileged to walk over lines of poetry. Literally. Along many of the sidewalks in our neighborhood, poetry has been etched into some of the newer sections of pavement that has been poured. This endeavor was a contest, as I recall, in which people were invited to submit a short poem suitable for cement. I love walking along and being stopped by the short, well chosen words of these anonymous poets. It makes any walk a surprising adventure. Much like the verses I read in any anthology, there are poems I remember and those that seem fresh and new each time I come upon them.
One of my favorites offers this wisdom:”Wet cement,/Opportunity./ It only takes a second/ To change this spot forever.” Indeed. Cool, gray, cementy mush gets poured into a perfect square of walkway. But one stick-drawn letter, one cat paw print, one child’s tiny hand changes the nature of that space forever. Or at least until the hardened concrete is jackhammered and replaced in some yet to be, future day. Only a second oozing into a forever.
Every time I pass over this etched-in-stone poem, I think of all the other times a second can change something forever. A chance meeting. A letter of acceptance or rejection. A turn down one road instead of another. Showing up or forgetting to go. Saying “yes” or “no” or even “maybe”. So many opportunities turn on that second that can make all the difference in the world. In a forever kind of way. Do you know what I mean?
I am surrounded these days by people at various stages of opportunity. There are those who have just made decisions about college and those who have now completed four years and are wondering where the time went. They are all at different points of making marks in an opportunity that could take them in forever kinds of paths. Still other people are at a point of their lives where they are making choices about retirement. The opportunities they had once etched in stone are about to be broken up and replaced with something new, a fresh poem and different path.
Perhaps it is always this way. We are often only a second away from someplace in the process of opportunity. The important thing might be the ability to have wisdom about how firmly we want to make a mark that might be suspended in time, forever, cemented in place. The thought is daunting, isn’t it? Maybe this is what discernment is really about. Taking the time to be intentional about the seconds that can make all the difference on the forever path.
When our sons were younger, I remember telling them in so many words to be thoughtful about choices they make that could alter their life’s dreams and path in ways they had not intended. I would probably still caution them in a similar way knowing full well that, sometimes, we only learn the really big, important lessons of life when we pick up that stick and put our initials in quickly drying cement. Ah, the plight of parenting! Ah, the plight of being human!
We walk every day on the poems of others whether we can see the words or not. The people who walk the paths with us leave their marks in a myriad ways. Through affirmations or criticism, through kindness or curse, the words of others scatter our way as we journey in the world. As a poet and as one who receives the poems, it is wise to remember the marks we make. One second can lead to a forever. It is good to be care-full.
