You may be right about how long the odds are
We’ll be together ten years from now,
Given how fluid our moods are,
How fickle our memories.
But our chances are good compared
To the odds we’ve beaten just to be here:
The odds against life as we know it
Emerging on any planet; the meager odds
That on this planet third from the sun,
One of its many improbable species
Would master the art of using pronouns.
I take your point that when we refer
To “you” and “I” ten years from now
We may be referring to people who differ
From us so much that they won’t be versions
Of who we are but separate beings
Unknown to us. Is an old sickle
With a new blade, with a solid handle
Replacing a cracked original,
A different sickle or the same sickle
Wholly repaired? That’s a question
Whoever we’ll be ten years from now
May still be asking while cutting the weeds
That narrow the walk from porch to curb
Or obscure the borders of the patio.
Maybe the people we’ll be ten years from now
Will turn from the path they share to follow
Separate branches for reasons as strange
To us, if we could guess them, as the reasons
Our galaxy has been pushing out untethered
For eons toward the edge of nothing.
Still, nothing prevents us now from trying
To live one of the days left us to share
As we believe it ought to be lived.
Even a day like this one—
When all we’ve planned is a stroll
Out on the causeway to Bird Island—
Could be a candidate. A day we may want
To add to those we’d be glad to live
Again as often as the odds allow us
A sliver of possibility, a list
That will serve as our version of forever.