Life

 

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to

the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a

stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have

your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman

down beside you at the counter who says, Last night,

the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,

is this a message, finally, or just another day?...

So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your

late night dessert. Pie for the dog, as well. And

then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,

while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,

with smiles on their starry faces as they head

out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

 

          - - - Eleanor Lerman, b. 1952