Everyone Talks About the Butterfly

A Poem

Flutters and Plants by Julie S. Paschold

Everyone Talks About the Butterfly

— To E. L. and the moths, beetles, and dragonflies of the human world

Everyone talks about the butterfly,
how it once had no wings,
was a simple caterpillar munching on leaves,
how it had to endure dissolving into a puddle
of goo inside an enclosed shell,
having to build its own chrysalis,
entering a coffin of sorts to wait and transform.

Everyone talks about the butterfly
who emerges from this self-built grave with wings,
a metamorphosis from unsightly worm
to beauty capable of flight,
encouraging those of us enduring change
to hold on a little longer,
equating the transformation to a deity.

Everyone talks about the butterfly,
but we leave the moth in the dark,
drab wings fluttering around artificial light,
searching for recognition as something other than pest,
other than plain.
These winged wonders dissolve within their own shells,
transform from caterpillar to flight in their cocoons,
create on their wings camouflage to hide
or…