John Haag

If a Simple Meditation Works, Trust It

Somewhere a disaster, however small, is refusing
to happen. An infant falling from a 6th-story window
lights uninjured on an awning. This time the mouse
escaped the cat, the gnat evaded the nighthawk.
Someone said Yes when who’d have thought it.
Hundreds of mineshafts didn’t quite collapse
and John Wayne missed on his first shot. Well
I admit my luck hasn’t been all bad. And since
each instant, once it arrives, will be exactly
like this instant, I have a lot to think about:
A jackknife at the bottom of a lake; an asteroid
in someone else’s galaxy; your warm night-smell—
things too far or too near for ordinary attention.
Six weeks from now I’ll pack up and drive East,
and I’ll say, Here I am driving East, as I knew
I would. And each mile will be its particular mile
and I'll be there just as I am here, and just as
I will be the moment I know I’m dying, which will be
the same instant I’ve always lived for, and it’s been,
all the way, a fantastic instant, and I’m convinced
it’s worth more than ordinary attention.

-John Haag