Chutes and Ladders

I bought Isabel Chutes and Ladders for Christmas.
It’s a game that you rarely finish–no winner, no
second place, no loser, just two to four players
pacing back and forth making illusory progress
up the grid, climbing the hopeful ladders, sliding
down the sobering chutes. It’s an endless game.
When you stop tracing the slides and just pick up
your piece, its face frozen in eternal anticipation,
and drop it down on the numbered square, then
you’ve realized something. It’s a life lesson,
one that might not be so good for us to learn
at any age. Unless the lesson is a broader one,
one you learn when you take your finger off
of the spinner, put up the game, and stretch.