Fate is hindsight

But is there proof

The doors were locked

When you simply neglected to open

The right one?

Everything that happens

Seems necessary working backward:

Your lover’s rejection, the career that sputtered,

The dreams scattered, that calamitous fall—

Or was a fall intended as the one we are told

Produced a glorious result?

Happenstance and necessity

Chance and destiny

Regardless, we are moved through this life

Through chaos or meaning—

Acceptance and reflection is all

 The dissolution —

That music hath a dying fall

From the first tremulous note—

It is a grave matter to enter this world

Forcing recognition of the mortal terror

Seizing at the breaking of innocence

A silent shout that persists

But grows tired and almost familiar 

With a crescendo like a dying fall

That passes for acceptance

Falling from the start