Oftentimes I wonder how life
Would be if a single event from the past
Had been different or hadn't occurred.
My whole life would have been recast.

All that's happened--right or wrong,
Wanted or not, good or bad,
Planned and expected or coincidental,
High or low, happy or sad--

Would be different. But would life be
Better or worse? If either, how so?
I can speculate all I want,
But that is something I'll never know.

Whether I take the road less traveled
Or whether I follow the beaten path,
Decisions I make are sometimes fruitful;
When not, I deal with the aftermath.

If certain causes and conditions,
Whether they were big or small,
Had been even slightly different,
I might not be here at all.

All it takes is a butterfly
In the Amazons to flap its wings,
And that--some people say--will have
An effect on countless other things.

Go to the beach and walk away
With just one grain of sand. No more.
Although it's imperceptible,
The shore now is a different shore.

Everything is interconnected
In ways too subtle to understand--
From giant, spinning galaxies
To the tiniest grain of sand.

-by Bob B (12-12-21)