In Preparation

In Preparation

With anticipation, imagined or real,

Resources are mustered and new plans are made

In hope to ease the anxiety I feel

For the future to which I am conveyed.

Some target the “soon”, say the coming week,

And some the “perhaps never to arrive”.

But to be ready then, I now do seek

Skills and supplies I will need to survive.

At least, perhaps I should so endeavor

To stockpile for every contingency;

Fretfully to scheme for any whatever,

Cede now’s is for maybe’s emergency.

But, I think, I do not worry enough.

Oh, I trouble some for the tomorrows

And about where I will store all this stuff.

But not for doom and the fear it borrows.

‘Though misfortune may come to knock me down,

Should I forfeit the boons of here and now,

To sulk with a forced, self-afflicted frown

And cut discomfort’s delay as I bow?

And when that sad downfall never does drop

And I leave with preparations unused,

Will lost opportunity for no swap

For very bad investment be confused?

How like a lottery becomes this game –

To be near certain to lose a little

And so unlikely a fortune to claim

When from life a small caution we whittle.

And when we took too many tiny nicks

From comforts we had for those we had not,

It was not our future which we did fix,

But more woes into the present we brought.

Let’s prepare for the known generously,

But, for the multitude of maybes, wait.

Allow life’s heap to serve capriciously

For those things we should not anticipate.