The Twisted Finger of Fate

Sometimes we read of events
Half a planet away,
And as if by some strange
Stroke of intuition,
That incident registers in our brain.
Just before Christmas
A ferry sunk in the Philippines
With over seven hundred people
Crowded aboard,
Well in excess of the ship’s capacity.
Amongst all the tragedies,
Travesties and disasters
The newspaper proclaimed,
That single occurrence
Riveted my attention.
The ferry service initially reported
Six hundred ten passengers,
But after seven hundred and ten people
Were rescued from the water,
And thirty-three bodies were recovered.
The officially reported number
Is more than a little questionable.
It just so happens
That four of the people on that boat
Were personal friends of my wife
I found out later.
The body of one of her friends
Was recovered, however,
The three others are still missing.
More than likely,
The total number of people
Loaded on that ferry
Will never be known.
By what twist of fate,
Those four were on that boat,
I can only imagine.
Why the sinking of that boat
Registered in my brain initially
Can only be speculated.
Maybe it is all coincidence,
And maybe it is not.