"Metamorphosis!" Now Onstage

A transformation in four acts

Butterfly painting by Allyndaire Whelehan, acrylic on canvas, 2021.

“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.

---

Gratitude to Michael Meade, for his excellent workshop “Facing Fate, Finding Destiny,” that inspired this poem.

If you’d like to support my work, please share it—

or subscribe—

or, buy me a tea!

And I ALWAYS love comments…

As always, keep your light shining bright.
xox
M