Divine Intervention

The trucker stopped to take a whiz

but was distracted by

the pretty blonde pumping gas

and forgot to buy caffeine.

A deer shook its head 

as the 18-wheeler passed,

as it weaved slightly

and drifted into the wrong lane...

where your car would have been 

at that precise moment 

had you not been home

sleeping off a cold, 

never knowing how close

you came to certain death.

The deer chuckled at the sight,

startled into a little dance by

the side of the road,

the sight of which woke

the trucker just in time to right himself.

Crash averted.

But this deer, see,

has a thing for cars like yours,

an evolutionary quirk.

Had you been driving there,

listening to the radio,

the deer would have stared

at you as you approached,

not chuckling at all,

not even close to chuckling.

Dozing off, the trucker would have

surely thought, just before impact,

of the pretty blonde.

And I would have been left

wondering why

you never showed up

for lunch.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

I wrote this in a slightly different form sometime last year, but there's nothing like a safe homecoming from a long road trip to remind a person of the gift that just making it back really is. We will never know how many times there was divine intervention at work. And, having lost a son to a car accident, I can only believe that when that intervention doesn't happen, there is a reason for that, too.