Making Plans Poem by Daniel Brick

for Anne and Those She Loves

What is the use of making plans?
A contemporary Ecclesiastes
will shake his head and rail
against the vanity of pitting
desires against time. Here's how
I see it: today, you finish
dreaming of a future shaped
by your plans, each mioment
settled in its proper place
and a mantle of satisfaction
spread over everyone you involve.
Then tomorrow arrives with no stake
in your happiness, no awareness
of your perfect plans, and dire events
tumble forth - an illnesss, a postponed
reunion, a death in the family, forgotten
promises. There will be no end
to the spoilage of hope, and time will
mock your plans with sour laughter.
So I repeat: What is the use of making plans?

This bowl of lies was my mind last week.
Then I read the message you sent me,
and you had silenced Ecclesiastes
and lifted my mood. Oh, the calm
certainty of your imagined future!
With LOVE the center around your plans
orbit... It is the man in your heart
of hearts, whose embrace measures the boundless
contours of the world you two share, the soil
in which your plans flower to maturity. It is
the children you teach, who love you like
a big sister, your second family outside of home.
It is your friends, who face the same future
as you with their plans gilded with hope.
It is your country, under the ever renewed
mandate of heaven, on the cusp of new greatness.

You see how your faith has inspired mine,
I am infected with your hope and rejoice
in this ideal sickness. I see clearly now
the use of making plans, because nothing
which is not planned can be loved, and
nothing that is not loved can become real.