One Night

A game we played a while ago
With board and dice and what we'd know
Asked each at start ‘define success’
With no defence of righteousness.

So of one hundred points each game:
Percent to cash and what we'd save;
Percent to fame we thought we'd get;
Percent to happiness – a set.

The winner was the one who got
Success, defined as what they sought;
A clever game reflecting life,
Though single each, no husband-wife.

With all such games there's happenstance
Like life, when breaks appear by chance:
One man, an error with machine
Made “soap that floats” (before not seen).

So, paper towel’s from tissue made;
Mould, base for penicillin laid;
So many times one sees it not
That “silly putty's” what he's got.

That's why the role of dice in game,
Keeps iterations not the same;
Some breaks are good, and others best,
Some bad of course, which is zaps our zest.

In life, the game which we all play,
Success, defined, has costs we pay;
We also pay when suddenly
We get bonanzas we can't see.

Tonight some folks quite rich will be –
One hundred million lottery –
But others, given influence
Find lives of theirs quick changed by chance.

“Two things”, said one, “that people don't
Deal well with here on earth (or won't):
One's power in all its many ways,
The other's cash, beyond just pay.”

Advice we seek if we are smart –
Some good, some bad, some really dark;
Regardless, power and money are
Tough things to handle – way – by far.

So whether we defined at first
The things we want to quench our thirst,
Or have them land on us perchance,
What happens after song and dance?

For life goes on at end of game,
Next round in life not quite the same;
For we start out where we left off
Some rich, some poor, when dice next tossed.

So second-generation kids
Start out with life already rigged;
And thus this week First Nations folk
Recount at Forks how spirit broke –

When they were taken from their place,
Ripped from their culture, homes – disgraced
To them by others, just as kids:
“Don't be like them, live in our midst”.

That's bad enough, but it got worse,
For “in our midst”, not “one”, of course –
So there they lived in no man's land,
Then rolled the dice found in their hand.

Writ small, that also pictures world –
Resource enough midst all the whirl,
But it's stacked up to favour few,
While most live life on buck or two.

But in their midst new leaders rise,
Some good, some bad, in other's eyes;
On Internet they make, some way,
Tomorrow better than today.

So dice roll on, then floating soap,
A card comes up, its window, hope –
There's many types of lottery
It's when we win, we challenge see.

Our lives defined with chosen mix
Till disproportion makes a fix
For us to deal with, drop, or keep,
Addressing what we did not seek.

How then do we address in fact
What lands on us of this or that,
Amidst a life with other folks?
A swirling game – success no joke.

Not every challenge meeting us
Is from a sickness, slight, or fuss;
Sometimes the greatest test of all
Comes from success, not from our fall.

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