A Poem for Friday

Metamorphosis

Does the caterpillar feel the same expectant hopes as it buries itself into a cocoon?
Yearning for the promised end result
Yet dreading that reality will not be as real as the dream?

Is it fear of the unknown
Or a fear of stepping off the edge of the solid status quo
Into the realm where dreams are either realized
Or shattered.

Is he content to be the roly-poly green
In spite of affirmations that his glorious wings will appear?
Does he look to the others that have gone before and wonder
If there isn’t something different about them
If there hasn’t always been something different,
That caused them to succeed where he has not yet tread?

And yet the instinct drives him to the silken web
Though he tries to put it off
He must, inevitably, submit.

Then, in the sweet stillness of sleep
Enthroned in his cocoon
He lets his mind wander the paths of glory
Imagining colors bright and vivid adorning his wings as he soars
Tufts of grass tickling his belly.

The barest light of hope flickers in his mind
And he tears through the cords of promise
And unfurls his wings
And glancing backward he sees that he has become

A moth.