Lia Purpura's "Probability" poem

I came across a poem, "Probability," by Lisa Purpura in the January 19, 2015 issue of The New Yorker while reading in bed before I went to sleep.

I read it four times that night. More, since. 

I like it a lot. Not because I understand exactly what Purpura is trying to say. That's not how poetry works. Rather, it made me feel something about myself, and life, that rang true.

Something about how I place myself at The Center of Reality, viewing events from this oh-so-privileged perspective. 

The never-ending series of causes and effects that is this world comes my way, offering up something that makes me go Wow! This happened to ME!

But really, I suspect, it was just a happening. Wasn't about me. Or anyone, really. Just a happening. But I need to see it as "wild and rare." 

Because, as Purpura says, "what if it wasn't?" This would displace my specialness, leaving me as simply me, not ME!

Here's the poem.

Most coincidents are not
miraculous, but way more
common than we think—
it’s the shiver
of noticing being
central in a sequence
of events
that makes so much
seem wild and rare—
because what if it wasn’t?
Astonishment’s nothing
without your consent.

Comments

[june schlebusch]

I enjoyed that Brian, thanks for bringing her to my attention..Read some of her other works I particulary liked Future Perfect....Where were you befor you were born and where you are when you are not anymore...Might be the same place...Though neither is as slippery as being here, but imagine where youwill have been, that point, where things land, are finished, over and gone, but not Yet...Good poetry makes my day,

[Aleko]

The Moon and Sun have virtually the same angular size in our sky because the Sun is about 400 times wider than the Moon, but it's also about 400 times farther away. They look the same size in the sky...albeit one is easier on the eyes. This seems to some a spectacular coincidence. Yet, is one experienced by all humans.

On a similar note.. it is not uncommon for very young children to believe that the sun (and moon less commonly) are following them around.

We mature yet still, unavoidably, we place ourselves in the center of The Reality Show. We can mature past that absurdity, however, and take ourselves, well, less seriously....