April morning run

It’s a gray rainy morning,
but mild -
Spring is in the air,
in its damp, ugly way,
with the smell of drowning worms on pavement.

I wonder,
as I dodge the squelchy ribbons
What possesses them to commit
this mass suicide?
Do they feel triumphant,
emerging from their dark winter tombs
like some sort of vermiform Jesus,
just to find a world of impenetrable asphalt?
And once they encounter such obvious resistance,
Why do they keep going in their pointless,
self-sufficient trek across this endless expanse?

Clearly, turning back is their only way to life.
Turn back! I tell them.
Back to your safety, your home,
your little wormy kin!
Back to where birds can’t slurp you up
and sun can’t burn you to a worm-crisp.
But they are heedless, mindless
in their parallel, solitary excursions.

After my run I pause
to give the help they don’t know they need,
stooping to the driveway like a god,
tossing a few worms back
to where they obviously belong
on the grassy lawn of salvation.
(I even save some slugs,
though they disgust me,
just to demonstrate my lack of prejudice.)
But there are way too many of them,
and anyway I feel kind of foolish.

The day cleared up beautifully.
Now on my evening walk,
I see the ones I left behind,
those un-chosen ones,
dark rubbery curled-up globs on the pavement.
It’s a little sad, and definitely gross.
Maybe they chose this,
and there’s nothing I could have done,
but still,
I hope it wasn’t too painful.