Tuesday night as I was hanging out in the library lobby, waiting for my guest speaker to arrive I wandered by a display of poetry books.  I don’t generally read poetry, but as my speaker was a poet and I was just hanging around I thought I’d scan a few pages.  So I randomly picked a volume up and arbitrarily opened it. 

The poem was about the last moments of a family’s life as they were driving in a car, rounding a curve on a freeway while a truck carrying a load of oil was going up over the median wall coming toward them.  The poem was focused on what each member in the family was doing, all the while unsuspecting that these were their last moments.

What are the odds I would pick up a book of poetry at all, much less open it to this poem.  I read it.  Gasped. Put the book back, and turned around with a smile to shake the hand of my speaker as she came through the door. 

Bibliography:  Fanning, Robert, “One and a Half Miles Away from Dying.” The Seed Thieves, Marick Press, 2006. pg 11.