I crept about on tiny legs
Inching along at a meandering pace
Devouring everything around me 
Knowing that eventually 
Everything around me would change  
Or change me

I feared the change that would take me
Alter me and everything I knew
I feared too, the swooping birds and ravenous bugs 
And the hands that grabbed for me 
Pinching me, dropping me
Fingers combing through blades of grass
Like trees to me
Searching, as I inched away
As fast as small legs could carry me

I found a hidden nook to hide
Spun strands around my form 
And part instinct, part dread
Covered myself from toe to head
Bound within my chrysalis 

I swayed there in safety 
So sure change would not find me
And beasts could not devour me
As long as I stayed hidden inside  

But change 
It is a force that cannot be stopped 
Or hidden from for long
It found me 

My safety, my salvation 
My chrysalis began to shake and split 
Blinding light came rushing in 
I tried desperately
To pull the torn edges of my safety around me
But I too had changed 
My chrysalis no longer fit me

I emerged slowly
Oddly steady 
Flexing new projections 
That began to lift me 
I hesitated, still fearful 
But change had already conquered me 
And my instincts begged flight

I let the wind take me
Flapping, swooping
Tasting freedom 
Released from fear
Flitting from flower to flower
Sipping nectar 
No longer fighting the change 
Accepting it, embracing it
Taking flight and rejoicing
In the power and the freedom 
The terrible beauty 
Change had transformed me

Change is a force that cannot be fought
It moves in stages
Slowly, almost imperceptible and then suddenly
Metamorphosis  
The emergence of the butterfly.

 

 

 

© Amanda Saylor nee Burns. All rights reserved,