Valuation

Who is of value?
Who makes a difference?
Is value a measure
of what one can materially accomplish?

As flocks of swans swim by, white on white,
The black swan is unforeseen, unimagined.
Are all swans white? We know nothing of the swans we don't see.
All we can deduce is what we see. Merely white, truly ?

So how can we know the color of a single life's feathers?
If not accomplishing a thing, and in so doing,
achieving a positive effect:is that not of value?
A life of ineffectual, impotent immobile worth.

Each life is a series of accomplishments and non-accomplishments.
If only Mr. Fosse was not an accomplished pilot; you see,
he ran into a black swan, the unforeseen event that cost his life.
His value is now very low.

By my not solo piloting, soaring and climbing then crashing,
by my non-accomplishment,
my life with its debilitation and limitation is worth more now than Mr. Fosse's.
So is the singularity, Mr. Hawking, to cosmology.

The value then is in the living, the possibility, the struggle.
The face of Him who made us smiles upon those who help the helpless.
Yet, the helpless glimpse, in their struggles,
His holy visage for they allow others to be smiled upon.

The black swan, while rarely seen, does exist,
singularities subtle and overt,
some with enormous impact (days that will live in infamy),
and many with no impact (unnoticed yet serendipitous).

In my little pond, full of white swans, swim a few black swans.
To Jennie and Michelle, for Jerome and Vincent, these words are penned.
For my sons and Doug. Most especially to Teresa, my tifi.
Look where others do not: move past convention. And there will be the black swan.