Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Poem: Too soon to tell


TOO SOON TO TELL

A new job.
New bosses. New responsibilities.
Not-so-new computers.
Anger. Antsiness. Impatience. Control issues.
Was this the right decision?
Did I choose wisely in coming here?
Per Zhou Enlai,
When he was asked about the success
Of the French Revolution:
“It’s too soon to tell.”
It’s too soon to tell.

My mind will be a jumble
And even a bit shell-shocked
For more than a month.
Will weekend visits to Austin help?
To the degree they do,will they be worth the price?
It’s too soon to tell.

Was it just fear of change?
Or was my intuition correctly ringing out
A blaze of three alarms or more?
Should I have suffered
Through yet more feelings of being trapped,
Through low-grade ongoing anxieties,
Rather than the potential of high-voltage unknowns?
It’s too soon to tell.

When I left Dallas for Odessa,
The first domino of moving to fall in this chain,
After two months of unemployment,
Anxious over job hunting,
And recognizing the severity of the recession,
Yet loath to move
And depressed as I drove across the Permian,
Was it good or bad?
It’s too soon to tell.

Good and bad are relative, and utilitarian;
I did nothing “wrong” any of these times.
But I made decisions
In uncertainty, without knowing even
Rough percentages on outcomes.
And, so, in that utilitarian sense,
As to whether these choices were good or bad?
It’s too soon to tell.

December 26, 1963 – was it good or bad?
It’s too soon to tell.

            Jan. 3, 2012

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