James Moore Poet Narrative

Notes About The Poem

Alternate Lives

(“Still Life”, 2021, original encaustic)

Alternate Lives

Time appears to go in a line
From then to now
And some times it does 
But at a certain point the stream
Becomes a river
Which then spreads into a delta.

I’ve always found the metaphors
Of literal geography to be the best,
And in this life can see the threads
Of alternate lives play out
All the what ifs 
We’ll never really know.

What if my first wife and I had children
Instead of abortions?
I’m sure we would have stayed together,
And my daughter by the next wife would not be, 
At least not who she is to me now.
And what of my life with wife number three?

Certainly that would not be.
And in the alternate beings and not beings
I would not have done all the things
I have done to make me me
And the same for everyone else touched 
And moved and divided by the flow of time.

A flow that sometimes seems insignificant 
Until it clearly isn’t 
And the parting is complete,
Until it isn’t, and some kind of unity, 
A whole greater than the parts
Is realized again.

(3/26/25)

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