Happenstance

Happenstance.

At the bottom of the lake
There is a man with a baby stroller
His name is Happenstance.

He talks about how Jesus gave us a way out,
crawling on our stomachs,
and in between sermons, which are short,
he cries like a baby.

I ride past him on my bicycle mornings
down at the park.
He's been in prison, you can tell,
and mental institutions -
One look at the scars he wears
outside his demeanor
and you know.

I try to imagine what happened to him,
what his pain means to me
over any other point on the compass.

I pick him, I suppose, because I need him,
this man called Happenstance
with his empty baby stroller.

I pick him because his story is mine.
To get right with God, he tells it.
Last chance, Salvation.

Only God doesn't come near sin
and most of us are so full up
we're gonna explode.

Happenstance tells me about a pit of snakes
waiting to be filled,
about hope growing out of an empty stroller.

I listen in bleeps like radar as I peddle past him.
What is it to push a baby through this world
on it's first ride, I wonder?

I listen to the triumphs
in the early light for an answer.

I witness the clutter
of morning paradise, of swing-sets
starting up, of spider webs swaying
on the low branches.

I watch a pair of geese drink from a
puddle like primordial husband and wife
before the homeless and the walkers
and the joggers arrive.

What is it to push an empty stroller
through this world of waiting to
be filled?

I listen for the answer in bleeps
like radar as I pass him.

One day perhaps my son will arrive.
and I hope he finds his gods
in the dead stalks of the lotus flowers
as I have.

Let him nourish himself on the outdoor
kitchens of the homeless.
Let him wake up in the comfort of his mother
naked to her cushions.

There are a thousand worlds open to him
in this park and in this city.
Let him have them all.
Let him live through them without
my curse
for he has my blood,
and that of his mother too,
who insisted him.
But let him pump his own blood in time
and pass his own thoughts.
And never let him see the man called
Happenstance
at the bottom of the lake
who wanted to silence him
before he began.