Numbers don't lie
though those who use them do
not always
but often enough
and yet it's comforting
when the numbers are on your side
when the odds favor your choice
of candidate
or predict a winning season
for your team

To know the world
you need a few statistics
and yet
what are the odds
of being born
to these particular parents
or for that matter
of being born at all?
then there are those
seemingly chance encounters
that change your life
and are at once impossible
and yet inevitable
too charged with meaning to be
just coincidence

True everything is happening
co-incidently
but it's not just coincidence
if you can see
beneath the surface
feel your way down
to where life's hidden roots
reach out in all directions
subtly connect us
to the stars
the mountains
to everything alive
and doing so
create a ground for words
of healing
acts of kindness
rooted in that wisdom
that deep sense
of kinship
with whomever or whatever
by coincidence
happens to cross your path