Curiosity

Spring is here.

I spot a grasshopper

near my not-yet-planted

garden bed.

Just days ago,

I was warned,

Grasshoppers are leaf-eating machines,

garden destroyers!

Today, my morning walk

brings grasshoppers to my wandering mind.

An inner voice says, “I am curious.

What can I learn about grasshoppers?”

“I am curious.”

This sentence, foreign as a far-away land,

is a revelation.

A small miracle.

In my 20s, I awoke every morning

with overwhelming fear.

I gritted my teeth to the day,

expecting nothing more than survival.

But a voice from somewhere

disagreed with this fate.

Forty years ago, it said,

“I don’t want to live this way!

I want to feel my life

as an adventure,

a discovery.

To live with excitement and joy.”

That Friend

who visited in my youth

has been with me

all these years.

Picking me up, again and again,

out of the dark, out of despair,

out of the desolate place

that would have me give up my life.

Sending helpers and teachers

to show me

something else

is possible here.

And here I am

Googling grasshoppers.

Relishing the words

that come more and more

from a previously unknown place

I am so curious about that . . .