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“ The life of Butterfly ”
– be caterpillar’s fate –
There be a time
Chrysalis soon,
Needs to forget
Life isn’t tuned,
Pain fails beset
Nor be immune,
Suffer progress
Metamorphosis,
Feels be regress
In awkward state,
Of primary stage
Be caterpillar fate,
It dons final phase
Of innate crawling,
To find taking flight…
I may have wished
‘Twould so remain,
Thus circumspect
Sheltered from rain,
In cocoon darkness
Tho bar delighting,
In early morn sun
A colourful ravager,
Who once could see
At leaf perspective,
When as a butterfly
Explores new birth,
From watch on high,
Now a ravaged earth
Thru sad tearful eye,
From fugacious berth
In wilted summer sky,
Once caterpillar’s fate
All the while reflecting,
On the life of butterfly!
written June 4, 2020
© Jean -Jacques Fournier
Photos, M. Dessis & anon.
Music, by Kai Engel
Poetry on a canapé 
“Metamorphosis,
Feels be regress
In awkward state,
Of primary stage”
Butterflies – when I see them appear I know that spring has come. The idea of transformation can be applied to humanity. While transitions and transformations are essential, they are not easy. I’m feeling my butterfly wings are growing. Many thanks for another brilliant poem.
Ah, dear Rebecca, you are a poet’s dream to have as a reader, because you get it…! Thus so without any hesitation, due to and because of your understanding of imagery, symbolism, abstraction and interpretation. All of which seem, no are, definitely second nature to you.
The gods have been kind to you my friend, and I in turn benefit the serendipity of our encounter. Thank you for sharing the by-product of these, your abilities, that are for me pure enjoyment and encouragement…!
The caterpillar’s fate, the glory of the butterfly has so many metaphorical layers. A very beautiful poem. Poignant as well.
Thank you, Paulette… And yes indeed the the beauty of the butterfly at the sad expense of the poor lowly caterpillar. In a way, another aspect of the beauty and the beast story. That is our world as you so correctly interpret, metaphorically into the realism, everything, bar none in life has a price, one way or another. My point exactly slightly disguised on the backs of our poor short lived butterfly and its predecessor sire caterpillar.
I love your poem! It completely turns on its head the butterfly as emergent beauty and freedom trope.
Thanks, Liz, and I in turn love your no frills, bone-thin deduction of my butterfly’s eventual reach to beauty, for it’s needed though short-lived ‘raison d’être’. Yes, freedom trope indeed, like all that is nature construe, so to speak, up to and including we from that very first drop to existence, to our ultimate short stay of questionable beauty, beyond or beneath the surface.
Jean-Jacques
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