A Poem For the Tuesday Before Thanksgiving

Starfish, by Eleanor Lerman

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

the store to buy breakfast and a 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 say, Last night,

the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder, 

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

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the

pond, where generations of biological 

processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds

speak to you of the natural world; they whisper,

they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old

enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?

There is movement beneath the water, but it

may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.

And then life suggests that you remember the

years you ran around, the years you developed

a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,

owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are

genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have 

become. And then life lets you go home to think

about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.

Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one

who never had any conditions, the one who waited

you out. This is life's way of letting you know that

you are lucky. (It won't give you smart or brave,

so you'll have to settle for lucky.) Because you

were born at a good time. Because you were able

to listen when people spoke to you. Because you

stopped when you should have and started again.

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

late night dessert. (And 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 while they head

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