No Regrets Need Apply

I shall not bother with regrets.

It’s all hypothesis,

and there is no evidence,

no clear path from A to B.

I might have been a historian,

fingers dusty with old documents;

or, as my father wished,

a lawyer, parsing the points

of cases full of rights and wrongs;

but instead, near the end of life

I am finishing up as a poet,

full of concerns for the past

that I negotiate with scant data;

arguing the elements

of what is good and true

without the benefit of statutes;

but living in a world of asters

and flocks of blackbirds massing

in the light of a changing season;

and my fate seems satisfactory,

much more than merely acceptable.