Butterfly Essence

On the belly of a leaf,

In the cool of its shade,

Near the rusted rake,

Forgotten by the gardener. 

The essence of a butterfly 

Stirs in its emerald sphere. 

Two united, reconfigured into one, 

The combined essence of its parental pair. 

A freeing push, 

A silent tear, 

A flood of light, 

A new life appears. 

An infant caterpillar unfurls. 

Driven by growth, 

It moves to the edge of a leaf. 

Swallowing up its essence. 

While the world continually shifts from light to dark. 

It reaches its length of days, 

Then, draws a silken strand 

And spins itself its shroud. 

On the belly of a leaf 

In the cool of its shade 

Near the rusted rake 

Forgotten by the gardener. 

In the darkness of its silken shroud,  

The essence of life transforming, 

Hangs by a thread,

Changing.  

The reshaped essence of the plant 

Transformed to be its own, 

The essence of the parental pair and it’s own.

The four reshaped as one. 

Energy continually reused 

Rearranged, reshaped, reformed 

Recombined changing a 

Silken shroud into womb. 

On the belly of a leaf 

In the cool of its shade 

Near the rusted rake 

Forgotten by the gardener 

A blacked womb twitches. 

A silence tear, 

A flood of light, 

A new life appears. 

Struggling with a form unknown,

Pulling itself to the light,

Wings hardened by air,

The essence of many takes flight. 

Its essence a combination, 

Of generation upon generation,

The eternal act of sharing,

Ones living essence with another.