The caterpillar’s like a worm,
A low and dirty thing,
Which causes girls to hide and squirm,
And to their boyfriends cling.

It hangs about in grass and mud,
Sometimes gets in your hair,
Until a boot comes with a thud,
And lets out all its air.

A beast of one of God’s bad days,
An ugly one at that,
Luckily there are lots of ways,
To end it with a splat!

It never really hurts a soul,
This shy and timid bug.
Which nature gave a smaller role,
That hardly rates our shrug.

Its hairy skin begins to creep,
It spins a safe cocoon,
To flee from life in peaceful sleep,
And not a moment soon.

It dreams of worlds through other eyes,
Of places far and near,
And asks why people must despise,
Those things they need not fear.

Now locked inside its private space,
And free from birds of pray;
It fixes up another face,
To try another way.

As metamorphosis takes hold,
The caterpillar rests.
And feels the wings that will unfold,
That still cling to its breasts.

Too soon, perhaps, the shell is gone,
And time of life known there.
The light thrown by the next day’s dawn,
Reveals the foul grown fair,

An old, new world out there awaits,
A creature it once shunned,
The welcome’s warm, if somewhat late,
A short time in the sun.

Surrounded now by friends galore,
How kindly its rebirth;
Tis strange t’was not accepted more,
When crawling on the earth.

So spread your wings, impatient child,
And trip atop the sky
And loose the ties into the wild,
Prove earth’s grave pull a lie.

Copyright © 1999 Paul Heno