Poets help us inch forward
This yellow striped green
Caterpillar, climbing up
The steep window screen,
Constantly (for a lack
Of a full set of legs) keeps
Humping up his back.
It’s as if he sent
By a sort of a semaphore
Dark omegas meant
To warn of Last Things.
Although he doesn’t know it,
He will soon have wings,
And I, too, don’t know
Toward what undreamt condition
Inch by inch I go.
-Richard Wilbur
Maybe on the darkest of days, we are actually inching along a brilliant pink flower, but are on that part of the journey that holds the flower together, the black under hang of one petal beneath another, dark enough that we can no longer see the pink unless we continue inching along. And suddenly we emerge into sunlight, onto bright pink again, inching toward that center sun. We, too, will soon have wings. This is where trusting the journey means everything.
[Thanks to Stefan "Bob" Rennix for pointing me to this poem.]
