Poetry: Small World

Now and then a stranger or event
rings a familiar bell
and I’m caught wondering
how it’s a small world really.

Everyday history repeats itself
happenstance has run out of new tricks
in its magic bag
because it’s a small world by and large.

The rich and the poor may be worlds apart
but after each has played his part
time and chance happens to all -
it’s a small world after-all.

Mostly eighty years at the best
yet of all men, the richest
couldn’t buy himself an extra life
what a small world for so much strife.