"Metamorphosis!" Now Onstage
"Metamorphosis!" Now Onstage
A transformation in four acts
“Metamorphosis! Now Onstage”
Prologue
Butterflies are clichés, are they not? Metaphors for change,
ho hum. Squiggly worms to winged miracles, yes yes yes.
The world needs another butterfly poem like it needs
more love songs: didn’t Millay, Wordsworth, Frost,
and Dickinson cover the topic just fine? whines
resistant me, so of course those critters besiege
my day start to finish: random books fall open
to tales of butterfly encounters; a last-minute
detour delivers me to a butterfly sanctuary;
bright yellow cloudless sulphurs flit, dive-
bombing me from all directions until
I bark alright, then! I hear you,
universe! and uncap my pen
as the curtain
rises.
Act One: Caterpillar
i am born.
plant-bound, i feast.
plod plod plod
eat eat eat
all i see is green
all i want is green
life is
this leaf,
nothing
else
watch me
as i
ripple forward
gut first
mandibles
churning
abdomen
swelling
plod plod
eat eat
to consume
is all i know
mating?
what’s that?
nothing
stops me
day after day
after day
i grow fatter,
slower
plod eat
plod eat
leaving only
destruction
until i just can’t
eat
one
more
bite.
Act Two: Chrysalis
I hear a calling:
hang yourself
from a twig
so I spin sticky silk to
affix myself;
my skin
hardens, loosens. What is this
growth I am
birthing?
I squirm, twist, thrash
in dizzy spirals,
a dance
I was born for, a gyration
of spinning discomfort
and ugliness
that feels wrong on every level
except the one
that matters;
what was my skin bunches up
and finally casts off;
now I am
an opaque shell, a jewelry box
holding what, exactly,
inside?
Don’t be fooled by my smooth
exterior; it hides
a gathering war.
What called me to molt calls
yet again, a silent voice
mine own and not
mine own: a soul-seed,
imaginal, a me
within me
dormant until this moment,
now awake and striking
fear;
it is foreign, this future me, and thus
it is my enemy. I know,
deep in my being:
one of us must die.
Intermission
House lights up.
You might be tempted to step out to the lobby now —
go get a drink, a snack to distract.
Maybe you’re collecting your belongings,
to skip out now and not return.
I don’t blame you; what’s coming
is real conflict, drama, a fight to the death.
What’s that you say?
You’re not keen on conflict?
It’s not enjoyable?
You’d rather skip to the end, to the fun part?
Sure, you can avoid the confrontation.
No one is keeping you here. Know this, however:
the best part of this show won’t happen
without an epic battle. It can’t.
You must choose. Do you walk away from Act Three,
the harrowing climax of this story, or do you trust
that there is something for you here, something necessary,
and step beyond your fear?
Bravo. Hold tight to my voice;
I’ll be your eyes and ears inside my tiny round world.
I promise you, it will all be worth it.
House lights dim.
Act Three: Resistance
I attack.
I will annihilate the imaginal me.
The struggle is relentless and violent.
Past wrestles with future; who I was
clashes with who I am to be.
Attack! Defend! I am both sides of the duel.
Disorientation.
I am disappearing, oh god, into pain
and nothingness; my enemy is gaining!
I will not surrender to the unknown…
I’ll die before that happens!
Dismemberment.
I will not give up!
Never! I am a caterpillar!
And I will not…
will… not…
Disintegration.
It is over. The future has won.
The imaginals triumph.
All that remains is goo, magic sacrificial soup
simmering with all the ingredients of a bright future.
From the inside, everything has changed.
From the outside, nothing has.
From this moment on,
I speak with a new voice.
Act Four: Butterfly
I am
rearranging myself.
This goes here,
that goes there.
Out of chaos,
form is taking place.
Out of goo,
architecture.
Be patient.
You still
cannot see my work,
transforming what was
into what is:
gross into delicate,
terrestrial into celestial.
You cannot
begin to understand
how I do what I do, or why,
or what
I will become, or when.
Metamorphosis is meant
to be mystery itself.
But watch closely, now,
my last trick,
the one you all
came to see:
the grand
finale, in which
my once-opaque
sheath splits,
freeing this grateful creature
who shares only
fading memories
with my heroic twin-self,
memories
of a collapsing
empire’s death throes
yet owes all
my own strength
to her valiant defiance.
Just before the curtain falls
I shake off any last clinging
remnant of the past,
unfurl my ticket
to the possible—
wet wings painted with saffron
or amber and ink—
then flutter into the fly loft
to exit this puny stage, hungry
to dance with the sun.
I am
reborn.
Epilogue
Uncap
yourself, for
imaginal soup is served.
The world, disintegrating
into a hot slop of potential,
wars with itself as it awaits one more
cell to tip the balance toward the new.
How long will this turbid intermission last?
What must die for the rebirth in Act Four?
And for god’s sake, what is coming? All I know
today is that resistance is necessary, destruction
pre-ordained — that’s the plot line of this show, this
cliché we’ve all bought tickets for. So when the universe
tells you to write a butterfly poem, do it without delay, for
each of us is a fortune-speller, and it’s time now to conjure
impossible wings that have been sleeping sub rosa, a new being
that transcends imagination: the butterfly that comes only when called.
Mary!!! This is brilliant and I truly savored every word., both spoken and written. Oh, how Synchronicity leads us down the most creative and rewarding paths. You got the nudge and you followed through and gave us this beautiful piece.
On my last meander over to Gone-Away Pond I noticed that there is healthy-looking Milkweed growing everywhere, and I am ecstatic.! I will never forget the first time I smelled Milkweed blossoms. I was walking through a huge meadow in Upstate NY and there was the most intoxicating scent. And then I saw Monarch butterflies everywhere.
The first thing my mind went to when I started reading this was “Hmm…guess who has Butterfly as an animal spirit/totem/guide???” And so I grabbed my copy of “Animal Speak” by Ted Andrews and read:
“Butterfly: Keynote - Transmutation and the Dance of Joy. Probably no animal or insect has come to represent the process of transformation and shapeshifting more than that of the butterfly. For those with this totem, the process of metamorphosis should be studied closely…”
Uh, you surely didn’t need a book to know this intuitively.
I love this line
“The world, disintegrating
into a hot slop of potential,
wars with itself as it awaits one more
cell to tip the balance toward the new.”
Personally, as crazy as this world is right now, I am excited to be witness to it and to be a part of its metamorphosis. I will think of you and all of the possibilities before us every time I go walking and see Milkweed. Heading out the door right now...🦋🦋 (Why isn't there a Monarch Butterfly emoji??) XOXO
Magnificent! I could feel this poem in my imaginal cells, Mary. Metamorphosis is messy. I notice that the less I worry about the optics of a world going to hell in a hand basket, the more I can observe things falling apart without dread. Your words inspire curiosity about how it’s all going to turn out while also issuing a reminder to listen to the inner voice that coaxes us into our own next step in the metamorphosis process.