A Card Game on New Year’s Eve

Part of it is luck, or God or the devil or fate.
Whatever your name, part of it
is out of your control.

Part of it is work, and learning the ropes,
paying attention
through trial and error and trial.

Part of it is the audience,
each one of them with their own set of eyes
so different than yours,

watching and making up their own version
that suits their sense of safety, propriety
and wounds.

And you are left to play the cards,
recklessly or steeped in calculation,
or walk away,

each decision with its own outcome,
cost and reward. and the only way to know,
is to shuffle, deal, and play.

About this poem.

Life 101. Or about a card game. Poetry is never about one thing.

The photograph was taken at Staatsburg, one of the Hudson River Mansions from the Gilded Age.

Tom