Have you ever done something
and then could not believe
it could possibly have been you?
Have you ever said something
and then cringed when you heard it
exiting your mouth?
That would be me, sometimes . . .
Or, while mentally calculating
your accumulating grocery bill,
have you run into a friend
only to completely lose count?
I have stood in front of the door to my home
trying to lock or unlock the door
using the keyless entry fob from my car.
I have done this --- more than once.
I have, months after getting rid of that car,
searched for its keyless entry fob
on my keychain.
I have spent hours and days
searching for glasses on my head,
for keys that I was holding,
for the purse on my shoulder,
and have managed to miss them completely.
I have called information for a number,
written it down,
and then had to call them back
because I misplaced the number before I could redial the phone.
I have neglected friends and family,
duties and responsibilities,
not from lack of love
or sound intention,
but merely by allowing myself to be distracted.
If I had followed up
on what I knew at seventeen
whales, sharks, mankind ---
might already be saved.
Who knows what my focused mind might have accomplished?
But instead
I put myself to sleep
because the real world
was far too much to bear,
and living in books and dreams
so very much safer
than all the dysfunction awaiting outside.
I met my soulmate at twenty
and then left him behind
marrying one man,
and then another,
who never got me -
instead of the one and only man who truly did.
There's a reason that God protects children and Fools.
There's a purity of heart,
an innocence of spirit,
and . . . occasional lapses in intellect.
So, for all of the lessons I've learned and I've lost,
There are worse things than being a Fool.
Which I remind myself again
as I accidentally call my own cell phone
and then hang up my land line to answer the call.
In parting, I offer what I finally learned, which is
This above all:
To thine own Fool be true.
Cori MacNaughton
6Apr2005
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 12:54 AM UTC
Have you ever done something
and then could not believe
it could possibly have been you?
Have you ever said something
and then cringed when you heard it
exiting your mouth?
That would be me, sometimes . . .
Or, while mentally calculating
your accumulating grocery bill,
have you run into a friend
only to completely lose count?
I have stood in front of the door to my home
trying to lock or unlock the door
using the keyless entry fob from my car.
I have done this --- more than once.
I have, months after getting rid of that car,
searched for its keyless entry fob
on my keychain.
I have spent hours and days
searching for glasses on my head,
for keys that I was holding,
for the purse on my shoulder,
and have managed to miss them completely.
I have called information for a number,
written it down,
and then had to call them back
because I misplaced the number before I could redial the phone.
I have neglected friends and family,
duties and responsibilities,
not from lack of love
or sound intention,
but merely by allowing myself to be distracted.
If I had followed up
on what I knew at seventeen
whales, sharks, mankind ---
might already be saved.
Who knows what my focused mind might have accomplished?
But instead
I put myself to sleep
because the real world
was far too much to bear,
and living in books and dreams
so very much safer
than all the dysfunction awaiting outside.
I met my soulmate at twenty
and then left him behind
marrying one man,
and then another,
who never got me -
instead of the one and only man who truly did.
There's a reason that God protects children and Fools.
There's a purity of heart,
an innocence of spirit,
and . . . occasional lapses in intellect.
So, for all of the lessons I've learned and I've lost,
There are worse things than being a Fool.
Which I remind myself again
as I accidentally call my own cell phone
and then hang up my land line to answer the call.
In parting, I offer what I finally learned, which is
This above all:
To thine own Fool be true.
Cori MacNaughton
6Apr2005
I wrote this just over a year before meeting my current husband, who is truly the love of my life. In an interesting bit of synchronicity, I wrote it on his birthday.
I have read this poem in public on several occasions, but this is the first time I have shared it in print.
Request permission to use this poem