Six Degrees Poem by Tony Jolley

Gate 13 wasn’t overly busy:
Just one or two persons per row of seats;
Still there were some 50 of us
And still there would be
The customary, unnecessary crush,
That unseemly scrum of ruck and rush
The moment the flight was called.
[And sure enough: there was].

But I saw hundreds more in the shadows
Hovering around the heads of the 50:
Each person spawning
The collection of connections
That make a life indisputably unique:
Husband, wife, ‘significant other’
[What a stupid, made-in-America descriptor],
Sons, daughters, father, mother,
Famille du sang,
Famille du coeur,
Acquaintances, colleagues
And the occasional neighbour.
A list never-ending –
Except that it isn’t:
It gradually frays at the edges
With a whole host of
Lost-touches,
Cooling feelings,
Fallen-out-withs
And dearly departeds;
All sliding off the slippery slopes of our lives
In a sort of strange slo-mo,
Like a song lacking a proper ending
Fading softly into silent oblivion.

We’ve all heard about
“The Six Degrees of Separation”
And its test-bed, cinema proof-game:
“The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”,
That so-implausible-it-must-be-possible theory
That any two people on the planet
Can find a connection between them
In fewer than six moves
If only they look closely enough –
Well, I wondered,
Was my life in six-step range of any of them
And if so, who and how and when?

The French girl with the high, Indian cheekbones
And impeccable fashion sense? – Perhaps…..

The thirty-something strutting his be-jeaned stuff
And boasting of his business successes? – Hope not! ……

The lass with the impossibly thin legs
Confined to her wheelchair
And in need of special assistance,
Or, better yet,
[May it please the God of Airport Departure Lounges]
A minor miracle
From the crumbs from his Starbucks table? – Maybe….

One day, perhaps, I’ll know.
One day, maybe, I’ll see;
Until then I guess its time
To toe the scrum-down, party line
And board the great be-wingéd beast
And head for home and South by East.