Serendipity

Everything is achieved through failure,

every destination worth reaching

arrived at in retreat.

This poet's tongue is chipped sharp

and purposed like a flint arrow head

launched hopefully towards his prey

only because he botched the axe

he was originally trying to make,

and found a fragment he could rescue.

The quarry he eventually provides

falls under the edge of his blade

only after what he was first pursuing

has escaped, and he turns his attention

elsewhere. And yet

he witnesses the sunset

without sensing defeat, heading home

along the shoreline at the end of the day,

and as the tide recedes once more

after its most recent advance into the bay,

on the shingle that is revealed by its retreat,

he finds below high tide, a gem stone

washed there by chance, and it will adorn

his wife's throat, and his children will eat. 

To live is to retreat without regret.

The wind will take our arrow where it may.

If we don't accept its loss with grace we make sharp

an arrow that will pierce our heart some other day.