Caterpillars

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

All summer long they are out there chewing

on something that is unable to shoo away their

multitude of tiny, suckered feet.

Maybe it calls out to the birds,

“Come! Perch here! Eat these!”

And, some birds do, definitely,

and toads,

and mantises,

wasps with effective yet questionable tactics, those

ladybird beetles that you naively think are

so lovely and kind,

but there are still more

scissoring away at the edges, sculpting, stripping,

all feeling fully entitled to gluttony;

there will be no acknowledgement of sin, oh no,

no repenting, no statements of any kind that

end with

Amen.

I love them.

Every single one is perfect in its beingness,

and I needn’t struggle with the ethics of it all.

***

I listened to the evening news.

How much longer until the butterflies emerge?

I’m not sure that I have the patience to wait.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

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