Breath

I read the I Ching faithfully for weeks,
Cast stones, and sticks, turned cards, disturbed the ghosts
Of ancestors, questioned the stars, made toasts
To goddesses, read omens in the leeks
And turkey gizzards, like the ancient Greeks,
Prayed silently, and loudly, to our hosts,
Who turned out, sadly, to be deaf as posts.
One wastes one's breath and effort when one speaks.

So what I wanted then was not to be,
And what I hoped would happen never did,
What I would do was not what I was bid,
What others dreamed became nightmares to me,
And what they wanted, I could not agree.
It's quid pro quo, or sometimes, quo pro quid.