In September 2011, I found myself unexpectedly wandering the streets of Istanbul. I say “unexpectedly” because there was revolution in Syria, a growing social uprising that would eventually ignite an all-consuming civil war. Security concerns had made going back to the city of Aleppo, which is where I had expected to be, impossible.

I was part of the faculty of a training program, funded by Sweden and designed to help officials and engineers around the region come together, across tense national boundaries, under the umbrella of sustainable development. The idea was that by learning together, building relationship, and getting greater exposure to various methods of systems thinking (all under the headline “Integrated Water Resources Management”), these water experts from Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey could become more effective agents of positive change. Working more closely together, they could create better conditions for managing the scarce water of the whole Tigris-Euphrates river basin, also known as “the cradle of civilization”.

I loved working in programs like this, helping (or at least trying to help) people with real challenges make at least small steps forward. Grappling with water management problems that had 10,000 years of human history behind them was especially exciting.

But the mood during our sessions in Istanbul was bleak. The Assad regime in Syria was cracking down hard on protesters. The worst drought of modern times had been wreaking havoc for years. The whole region felt like it was about to explode, which it was. Later research would establish that climate change had contributed to the drought, which in turn helped spark the revolution.

Just a half-year earlier, after our first training session in Aleppo, I had written an optimistic “Letter from Syria” that suddenly seemed terribly naïve. I wrote about being struck very positively by “a region with a very promising future”, though I qualified that remark by guessing that “the flowering of that future is decades away”. I likened the region to “a futuristic building, the kind one has never seen before, still under construction.” But by that September meeting in Istanbul, especially after talking quietly with people at coffee breaks and listening to the pessimistic comments aired during our working sessions, I had acquired a very different impression.

A great melancholy came over me one evening, and I took off alone, walking aimlessly through crowded streets, ultimately attracted to the waterfront. Sitting at a restaurant in the gathering dusk, looking out over the Bosporus Strait, I took out my notebook and pen and began to write.

“The Last Dice” may be one of the saddest songs I have ever written, but it does end with a sliver of hope. The future is always a gamble. You never know how it’s going to turn out. But if you don’t bet on a positive future, and then put yourself into the game to try to make that future happen, the odds are that it just won’t.

So throw the dice.

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Lyrics below. Listen to “The Last Dice” on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and other streaming services. The song is both the last one on my album “American Troubadour,” and the first on my remixed album/playlist, also called “The Last Dice,” which features the same songs as American Troubadour, but presented in reverse order — which tells a different story.

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THE LAST DICE

Words and Music © 2011 by Alan AtKisson

Head hangin’ low

Eyes bleary

I shuffle round

in Istanbul

.

Never been so

world weary

Empty head

And a heart too full

.

Oh …

.

The scent of spice

and salt water

draw me down

to the Bosporus

.

In the fading light

On the black water

I look for signs

That there’s hope for us

.

Oh …

.

Longing for a future that is past

Like Ulysses, lash me to the mast

Sailing on the sea of here and now

.

Sharp minarets

In the first starlight

Draw my gaze

To an empty sky

.

I place my bet

On the longshot

Take the last dice

And let them fly