My soon to be ex-husband Michael
used to say, “Most problems are caused by caterpillars.”
I couldn’t believe he said this to me on moving day.
We were vacating the home we had loved together for twelve years.
Our outstretched arms carrying
the contents of our married lives,
Splitting and separating
Breaking the long-time cohabitation of kitchen knives,
egg-beaters, plush cotton towels and boxer shorts.
The oven-baked dishware crying out for the kitchen cabinets
from their temporary variegated cardboard homes.
And hundreds of tiny green caterpillars
falling like rain onto our hands, the boxes,
everything we once held dear.
The weight of the dishes burning the muscles of my arms,
my small hands straining to bear the weight, the guilt,
the sorrow of tearing them from the only home
they have ever really known.
And, personally, I think the caterpillars are innocent.
The magnificent tree that once shaded our whole lives
weeping their tiny bodies, like soft green tears raining down
on the contents of a dream torn in two
by forces beyond our understanding.
And I look at the receding form of this man I have loved
for all these years, watching as he slips downstream
into the waiting embrace of another,
and somehow I know, in my heart of hearts
that the caterpillars had nothing to do with this.