perspective.

I read this poem over thanksgiving, and it made me feel so hopeful. So I thought I would share.

From here
so much goes by
too fast or slow for sight.
(Is death a stretch of time in which
a life is just a flash?) Whatever
we may think, we only
think that we will lose. The fetus,

expert at attachment,
didn't dream that
cramped canal would open

into sound and light and love--
it clung. It didn't care. The future
looked like death to it from there. -Heather McHugh

This poem beautifully uncovers the limitations of our perspective. Like a fetus clinging to the womb, wanting to remain unborn, we, too, become "experts of attachment," clinging to what is familiar as if our lives depended on it. The unknown sometimes looks like a loss. From where we stand, it is surely death or a dead end. But the miracle is that when we let go of what we know, the true adventure begins. We are born into sound, and light, and love.

I don't know about you, but the possibility of all this new birth -- the knowledge that my perspective is limited-- fills me with hope. And reminds me to step into the dim and foggy future unafraid.