What would an ordinary day be like
If it was an extra ordinary day?
If at the very end of my life
I was given just one more sunrise and sunset
How would I spend that day?
Would I rush around like a man possessed
Grasping frantically at all those dreams
That were always on the horizon
But for lack of passion and daring
Never caught the tide and made it to shore?
Would I plan every precious marching minute
Trying desperately to fill in those gaps
That forever loomed like shadows
Cast by towering expectations and fears
Blocking the light of what might have been?
What if some wish-granting genie
Conjured another day with a lost love?
If we were united once more
For a single revolution of the earth
How would I share that day?
Would I make a long nostalgic list
Ticking faithfully through those favourite things
That never failed to make us smile
And returning to all those special places
Where we’d loved most deeply?
Would I write a poem of gushing words
Struggling vainly to say those important things
That got lost in the flood of feelings
And drowned in the eddies of pride
When we were together believing in forever?
How would I use another chance to grow
In the presence of my spiritual mentor?
If the teacher appeared once more
For a final round of esoteric lessons
How would I learn that day?
Would my mind be hungry with questions
Nibbling impatiently at life’s succulent mysteries
That tease my appetite like an enigmatic riddle
And tangle my mind in a frustrating maze
Of endless dead-ends and unpredictable turns?
Would I be an empty echoing vessel
Naively expecting to be filled with fermenting answers
That would intoxicate my mundane world
And open the sealed vats of my consciousness
To startling new perceptions of alternate reality?
What would an ordinary day be like
If it was an extra ordinary day?
I can only hope that I would not squander
Such a sublime gift of time
In any of those ways I have imagined possible
Rather I would wish for that day to be ordinary
Unchanged in every way except this:
That I would be more aware more awake more alive
With all my senses fully engaged
In every delicious moment of that extra ordinary day.
Wayne Visser © 2004
Book
String, Donuts, Bubbles and Me: Favourite Philosophical Poems
This creative collection, now in its 3rd edition, brings together philosophical poems by Wayne Visser. In this anthology, he muses on subjects ranging from space, angels and destiny to time, science and meaning in life. According to scientists / The world’s made of string / That buzzes and fuzzes / Or some such strange thing / It’s also a donut / That curls round a hole / With middles and riddles / Just like a fish bowl / And there’s no mistaking / It’s more than 3-D / With twenty or plenty / Dimensions unseen / Still others insist / It’s really a bubble / That’s popping and bopping / Through the lenses of Hubble. Buy the paper book / Buy the e-book.
