<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="gmail_default">Those Never-Severed Umbilical Cords</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in;">And I saw a caterpillar just above the green can</div><div style="margin: 0in;">wriggling in the air, small and white it swung</div><div style="margin: 0in;">on the warm April breeze six feet one way,</div><div style="margin: 0in;">a few the other, held by a silk thread</div><div style="margin: 0in;">as it inched its way so slow</div><div style="margin: 0in;">by our<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Hurry, got to get this done<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>measure,</div><div style="margin: 0in;">on its journey back to its mother<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in;">live oak clothed in shiny brocade.<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in;">Then I saw another twisting<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in;">white one beside it</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in;">and another and another</div><div style="margin: 0in;">and wondered about our journey<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in;">to the source—the times I hold onto it, spiraling<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in;">lightly responding to life’s currents,<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in;">the times I slither blindly<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in;">careening down a path littered with signs<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in;">like “work”, “family,” “nation,” “them-us”,<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in;">perhaps, now and then glimpsing<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in;">those luminous silver threads</div><div style="margin: 0in;">that our Mother ceaselessly weaves in us all.</div><div style="margin: 0in;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0in;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Raphael Block</div></div></body></html>