The Way Through

If we’re going to be honest,
it’s hard to see a pathway out of this.
Empathy might not be dead,
but discord and division have so overgrown
the field, it’s hard to imagine
a way to harvest peace. Of course,
there’s always counting on a miracle.
It works in the movies, although
the truth is clearly that miracles,
by their very nature, are not to
be relied on. Except, of course, that the
caterpillar carries beneath its green skin
tiny fragments of what will become
the monarch butterfly’s wings.
The azure dragonflies you see at play
by any pond or lake or stream
are an echo from 300 million years ago,
when their giant ancestors stormed the skies.
The minerals in your bones aren’t different
than the limestone where those fossils
are found. I’m not saying it’s all
going to be joy and delight.
I’m saying that life
is long, and complicated, and we
belong to a family that has found
a million ways to thrive.

by Lynn Ungar