chapotraphouse

Mother, said a small tomato caterpillar to a wasp,
why are you kissing me so hard on my back?
You’ll see, said the industrious wasp, deftly inserting
a package of her eggs under the small caterpillar’s skin.
Every day the small caterpillar ate and ate the delicious
tomato leaves. I am surely getting larger, it said to itself.
This was a sad miscalculation. The ravenous hatched
wasp worms were getting larger. O world, the small
caterpillar said, you were so beautiful. I am only a small
tomato caterpillar, made to eat the good tomato leaves.
Now I am so tired. And I am getting even smaller. Nature
smiled. Never mind, dear, she said. You are a lovely link
in the great chain of being. Think how lucky it is to be born.

“Yes, Think” by Ruth Stone