Coincidence: A Poem I Wrote Twenty Years Ago

Recently, I was going through typescripts and manuscripts of my old poems. In a way, it was like reliving a trauma. I put so much work into these poems. I sent them to various magazines and newspapers and publishers and they always got sent back to me, with a handful of exceptions. (I still have dreams of hearing letters fall through the door of my old flat, and desperately hoping there might be some good news.) It was brutal! This was the main focus of my life for about ten years and nothing came of it-- absolutely nothing.

I've published many of them on my blog over the years. But when I go through my archives I'm surprised how many I've never used. Some of them were not bad.

This is one, I think. It was written before I became a Christian, from a perspective of profound (and reluctant) scepticism. My innate scepticism is what held me back from becoming a Christian for many, many years. I had such a very hard time believing in anything supernatural or paranormal. I was too wretchedly aware of the human capacity for wishful thinking. On the other hand, I loved hearing stories about the uncanny, supernatural, magical, and so forth-- and "hoping it might be so".

The image in the final lines-- of the baby staring into a fire, and imagining pictures in the flames-- seemed to me then like a perfect metaphor for human consciousness, a quirk of nature in a meaningless universe. I still like the image. I like any reference to looking into flames, or steam, or smoke, or water. But especially flames.

Coincidence

The night the club burned down, she wasn’t there;
She’d called in sick for once. A Scottish man
Phoned up his sister’s number, unaware
He had a sister. Some great master plan
In invisible ink lies in a tight-shut drawer
With all our fates marked out in criss-crossed lines

So maybe Scott will make it through the war
Picking his way out through a field of mines.

The voice gets stronger when the cynic smiles:
How likely is it every light was green
As we drove out to the hospital, miles and miles?
And the cynic’s eyes, too softly to be seen,
Light with a gentle longing: Maybe, maybe,
The world is not indifferent to our aims…

Before the flicker of the fire, the baby
Stares wide-eyed at the pictures in the flames.