As heard on the Good Stuff with Jim Thompson

                        And employ all we have learned,

                        Could we avoid mistakes and pain,

                        And save the chances burned?

                        Would we know that as we rush around

                        And in chances that we take,

                        Many lives are tossed and changed

                        In their tumble in our wake?

                        Could we find the higher road

                        And make excellence our goal?

                        Or would we squander every chance

                        To add fiber to our soul?

                        Would our friends be very different

                        From the ones we chose this time,

                        Would we sing a different tune,

                        Would we think in different rhyme?

                        Are we fated as some believe

                        To live our lives the same?

                        Are our paths all pre-selected

                        With no options to the game?

                        I would surely like to think that

                        If we had another chance

                        We would choose a brand new course

                        And would learn a different dance

                        Wisdom would come sooner

                        Our strengths would quicker grow

                        We would be more kind and tender

                        To those we came to know

                        We would share instead of taking

                        And make every day a shrine

                        To the thing we simply can't control,

                        The constant tick of time

                        But we'll never know for certain

                        What we might add or would rescind,

                        Such answers are too hard to grasp

                        In the wake of our own wind.

Don Hardy