Threes
Difficulties arrive in waves,
lending weight to the theory of threes,
the plunging fund, a failed engagement, the self’s
doubt, all combined to inflict the particular
misery of the ongoing, the continued, inelegant fate
that declares us human. Look,
she says, the hummingbird flits from leaf to
flower, its wings beating 58 times a second,
a fact not to be trifled with, for what may we duplicate,
contemplate, even, at that pace?
Say the hedge gets clipped, the ring whirs off the finger
and back to the jeweler, and all you know for certain
is that you don’t know. There is no why, no how. No
way. Or life’s reel unwinds and plays only in
reverse. Where do you stop and splice it, forming new,
uncharted worries? And what about that damned
bird, buzzing around your head in territorial fury? Yes,
yes, I know. These things are not my concern. Not really.
But they arrive in unending repetition, one after
the other, in clumps of three – lovely, lonely,
triple-threaded lines of vicissitude lapping at our ankles,
saying nothing, saying everything, saying it used to be so easy.
* * *
“Threes” was riginally published in Eclectica in July 2014, and first appeared on this blog in July 2015.
O at the Edges 
I usually don’t like without saying something. I know I love comments. When I think of the speed of hummingbird wings my mind goes to my friend, the cedar tree that I often stop to touch on my walk. I’m sure I was a cedar tree in a previous life. Eight hundred years.
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I share that feeling with you. We have some favorite trees in the neighborhood, including Seymour the sycamore, which Stephanie hugs whenever we walk by.
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“…the continued, inelegant fate
that declares us human”
Indeed. Is it possible to be declared something else before declarations cease? 🙂
Love this one, Bob.
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Hmm. Now I’m wondering what name I would choose, what entity.
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The clumping into threesomes is somewhat at our discretion – when to start counting? when to stop? That the awfuls keep awfuling feels pretty real to me (some might say it’s just my perspective). Hindsight suggests it never was so easy as it once seemed … perspective at any point dependent on paying attention.
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You’re right. What seems easy now in hindsight wasn’t so easy while living it.
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