Synchronicity

A poem

On the beach, a toddler searches the sands
Seeking the meaning that will elude him
The rest of his days
Across the globe, an old man clutches at his chest
Taking in the scraps of life remaining to him
Breath shuddering across quivering lips
Wondering at the purpose
As the silence takes him
The pulse of pain from a jellyfish sting
Elicits howls of agony and alarm
From the little boy digging
Veronique is in the flower of youth
Life stretching with promise ahead of her
An afternoon of practice, doors open to the sun
A brisk walk across the street, careless eyes focused on her phone
Instead of the car that would wear her as an ornament
And a thousand miles away, Weronika falls into melancholy
Folding her laundry
Eyes staring into the images
Of a life that may have been
How could you not have known
That this was the life intended for me?
A destiny passing the other way
Exiting as I entered
Our eyes never having met
By the merest hint of chance
Whispers of time passing like rainbows
Notions of perspective
Prisms of circumstance
Refractions of fate
Collapsing into a choice
The moment we decide to turn the knob
Or leave the door shut
Is it any more a mystery
That a shudder of movement here
Produces tempests a world away?
Should the invisible no less damage do
When there are no shores to crash against?
An offhand joke, a betrayal, a dark secret kept between us
Land in the opaque well of anonymity
A dustbin of erasure
With nary a hint of the calamities
They leave in their wake
Or is it mere coincidence
That the song playing when we met
Comes on the radio
Just as I get backed into
The phone rings
Right as my thoughts slip to you
And the dreams of avarice?
Were they just a mutual fantasy
A pleasant distraction I shared
With a faraway echo of myself?