An Occasional Chance Encounter
An occasional chance encounter
With a stranger on the street
Can change life like a tidal wave
And lift us off our feet.
The mystery of wakefulness
Like the dance of rolling dice,
Is filled with rhythm, love and hate
Virtue, darkness, light.
Bending ‘round from sky to ground,
Heaven, hell and in between;
An occasional chance encounter
Can turn a whore into a queen.
Who may have been lost in paradise,
Trampled, beaten, bruised;
The slut you spit on yesterday
Might well have been just you.
Or the skid-row drunk whose soul has sunk
So low you can’t relate,
To the pain he knows each time it snows
And the cold winds won’t abate.
Unless, until somebody fills
His heart with dreams again;
An occasional chance encounter
Might mean the world to him.
A word or two of hopefulness,
From nightmares all day long;
A helping hand, one measured stand
Turns sorrow into song.
And now and then when nothing’s wrong
And everything feels fine;
No dark cloud storms or feeling worn
Cast clouds upon the mind.
When all feels well and quite routine
And there’s nothing much to say,
An occasional chance encounter
Can change us all in many ways.
A look in the eye and words that fly
Out of one’s tongue and mouth;
Before we know it love starts to show it
And the heart starts heading down south.
Running away like a child at play
As if never before set free;
Wild in the wind as one begins
To open up eyes and see.
That blindness isn’t limited
To those that have no sight
But affects us all the weak and small
Every day and every night.
As now and then like a Zephyr wind
A stranger comes a’ calling;
Before we know we’re all a glow
In love and freely falling.
Like a coin toss out of nowhere,
Probabilities, unimaginable;
An occasional chance encounter
May render life numinous, unfathomable.
Trust me when I tell you that
There are riches deep inside;
Every soul that ever lived,
Struggled, loved and died.
As it is written in the book of life
And inscribed inside our heads;
An occasional chance encounter
Can find beauty in the beast within
And love where hatred led.
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