WHAT IF
Do you ever play the mental game
Of ‘what if’ that or this?
To yourself the question ask
Then imagine what the answer is.
I don’t do this much anymore
As it’s really a futile task
But every now and then
One of these questions I will ask.
Especially when it’s close to April
And I intend to write about my wife.
“What if I had been home that day?
Could I have saved her life?”
Then this starts a chain of thought
Of what my life might be
If other choices I had made
Before I was 23.
What if I had decided to teach
As I had planned to do.
Would I have stayed with it
Or lasted just a year or two?
What if I hadn’t gone to Colorado
That summer after graduation?
I wouldn’t have met the Dallas people
Who extended me an invitation?
Then when later a factory job I had
What if I had not been told
"You better quit and go somewhere else
Or, like us, you’ll be here ‘til you are old.”
I packed up within a week;
A suitcase was all I had.
Then a bus ticket to Dallas I bought
While thinking “What if this idea is bad.”
It wasn’t long before I knew
That a new home I had found.
Over fifty years have passed
During which I’ve bought some ground.
I still at times play this mental game
But in a slightly different way.
Now it’s “What If I had done this or that,
Would I have been any happier today?”