Thinking Outside Of The Box Poem by Patti Masterman

Do you ever look back on the happenings
Of this forty, fifty, sixty years of living, as though
Looking back into time at something
That no longer exists as you now recognize it.
Something long gone; an anachronism as seen from the future days,
But quaint, charming, and love-filled,
Appreciated for where ever and whenever it existed-
Would an exact knowing and certitude come of:
Why and for what, all of this now?
But since our awareness of this life comes to a definite end,
We will never really get to look back that way,
Without being caught up in those things happening each moment,
Always tearing our attention away from the more enlarging view.
We will ever find our existence bound up in the center of the whirlwind,
Our birth and death enclosed within,
As a baby universe bubbles up from a larger one;
Dependent on things much larger than ourselves.
What answers and reasons might become apparent if we could:
Everything might make so much sense we would be amazed,
Even shocked at how oblivious we had been-
Like watching a movie, and knowing exactly what's coming next, and why,
But the characters seem clueless as we shout a warning to them-
They can't hear a word of it, marching onward to their assured destruction.
Almost unbearably, we are like gods, but still can't save
The mortal actors from their movie-reel doomsday.
That must be what it is like, looking back from the future, at ourselves.
But how much worse would it be, if we could do that, and it still
Made no sense or appeared to have no purpose, just some strange hand
Dealt by fate, to each one of us; the straw we drew this time around.
One straw leading to happiness and fulfillment; another one to the chopping block.
If we could but climb out of the box one single time,
And see what else has been going on
While we were inside the box...