The Terns, The Turn

Flocks of arctic terns took southerly wing with snowflake's fall.
Onward the terns flew into warmer days without cease, over the great Midwestern shield of the continent.
But then, with the dawn of a high sun, a flock scattered in twain as, right through their midst, dashed a young tern -- flying north!
The leader of the tern flock swerved about, and soon they caught up to the young tern.
"Hola, young one!" the lead tern yelled above the flutter of their beating wings. "Why fly you north?"
"Does a tern not migrate north?" the younger tern barked.
"Indeed, we do," the lead tern replied, glancing back at his flock to see them all still riding his tail. "But, young one, we think your season is turned around! T'would be safer -- and more fun, I assure you! -- to head back south this season."
"But it was way too hot down South! I almost died of thirst!" the young tern cried.
"Ah, so you've been on this path a long while, then. But trust us now, young one. The South will become cooler and wetter with the coming season. To the north you will find only death."
The young tern looked over at the lead tern, with mild panic in its eyes. "But I've been on my path so long! How can I just turn around and abandon it?"
The lead tern skeewed a friendly laugh, and replied, "Just follow me, young one -- follow us all!"
And the lead tern wheeled about in the sky, heading once more toward the noon sun -- and, among his flock, followed at his right wing a once misguided but brave young tern.
Thus, the life you lead now can yet lead elsewhere.

September 27, 2014, excerpt from The Parables of Reason © 2007-2014 (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), by Frank H. Burton, Executive Director, The Circle of Reason

Aphorism of the Week

Reason, like gravity, is the weakest of natural forces, but in the end creates suns. -- via Alfred North Whitehead

Dedicated to U.S. state-by-state efforts to counter federal prohibition of the medicinal and recreational sales of marijuana, both prohibitions causing death and misery -- one by allowing illness to go untreated, the other by creating black markets, gangs and crime.