Part one of a poem in three parts ....

Ode to Fate
Part One ~ Misfortune


Wayfarers we, masters of many a discourse,
pilots of the open seas . . . we the rabble, the masses,
. . . your children of uncharted destiny.
Seize the wheel and set the sail, but consider the course,
n’er how well mapped, still it precarious be,
since every man, his woman and child,
a simple passenger on this vessel of God’s beloved Fate,
and prisoner to her unknown mandate.

Atop the mast head, she reigns, this patroness of circumstance,
a silent captain to each voyage where e’re we venture.
Proudly we scuttle round her sovereignty, until she speaks,
and we shiver at her summons, mark the timber of her call,
knowing not, whom her words may solicit,
or bid pay homage on their knees across her stately bow.
Yea, we do well to know her command . . . understand
her flight into the unpredictable winds,
wary in the knowledge, that as we tend her glorious sails
she can, our winged Fate, pluck any minion and bind it to her liege.

Be it on a humble breeze or torrid squall . . . it matters not,
she casts her terms, her judgment random.
Her eyes blind, she drops her net from the indifferent heavens
and we are caught and tossed upon the seas of favor or misfortune.
Woe, to those, the helpless souls whose casting lands
upon the brine of misery, for Fate follows with a deadly hand,
and too pained to look us in the eye, to our backside steals,
her hand upon our sinking shoulder . . . her fingers deep into our flesh,
we are held to each whimsical decision in the passing of her heart’s desire.
She requisitions some dastardly deed, some sequence bewitched.
She demands some twist of time and happenstance, irrevocable . . . immutable.
She bellows . . . and we drown, too well . . .
carried to unfamiliar shores on currents of grief and humility.

And the rush of her wings can be heard across both land and sea,
as back to her lofty perch upon the steadfast craft,
Fate strums a heavy harp and sings a solemn reverie,
a vibration of broken-hearted melodies carried by wind;
of stories that will have no voice,
of lips that will have no kiss,
of roads that will not be travelled,
of deeds that have no undoing,
“And of this child that will not come home,
never to suckle life and love’s mystery;
damnation to its mother’s wails,
damnation to my burden,
the child is mine and you must weep!”

And in the storm’s aftermath to which they were abandoned,
the castaways awake to Fate’s comfortless requiem,
and to a heartache that exists so tethered by tribulation
it scarce can drum an added palpitation . . .
scarce can murmur one more litany of despair.
The bearer walks in bewilderment,
moves in mystification through belief and denial,
holding fast to tears, lest the last sorrow fall,
and open the bitter shore beneath their feet.
They wait . . . with no other choice, but to ride
the next wind back to the vessel of life,
and dare to look God’s mistress in the eye.


jeanne rené 1/05