Bleeding before Living and Crawling with Faith that You Will Fly

I bought six caterpillars in a jar at the butterfly sanctuary up in Mass. This is their journey to becoming who they were meant to be and what I've learned from their life cyle about my own life

Blood drips from your unfurled wrings
Barely able to move, your struggling to breathe
You rest, seemingly waiting for your slow and painful death
Why so young? You were just born, as caterpillar inside a
chrysalis you did form, like an unborn baby in its mothers womb
Hanging down, you seem to prepare for the worst, your wings are             
still, held together by your weakness. Exhausted, you don't seem to have the strength to fly.
Your wings should have been beautiful and gleaming with the colors of life,             
instead they are spotted with grey eyes that will never blink but serve to hide             
you from the predators that seek to take your life.
It seems too late, fate has begun to take its familiar toll, 

in one last attempt you spread your wings, beating slowly, rhythmically, every other minute.
Your magnificence astounds me, but it is so fragile and so weak I can't watch, your innocence is unbearable. It looks as if it is withering away to death. Why do you struggle so? It is agonizing to watch you try, your body looks as if it is toiling. Close your many eyes and curl up your wings.
We’ll bury you as if you were a Lady in a Painted castle of colors you’ve never seen. Just die, little bug, I cant watch your terrible ending. Blood trickles from your body, splattering and staining the ground far
beneath where your hanging on so tightly.
Still you flap, slowly, rhythmically.
For a couple hours I observe. You seem so tired, at times you rest and don’t even move, your wings seem to be stuck together with the sadness of your youth. I watch as you fold up your wings one last time, it looks as if you are done. Fate has come, leaving behind your blood in remembrance of your innocent attempts.
I open the cage to take you away and bury you in a grave of my memories, sadness overtakes me. I reach to take hold of your dull grey wings. With a sudden start, I’m taken aback by the rapid flapping of your newly formed wings. With strength and amazing agility you fly around me, swooping here and there.
 Death was nowhere near, I try to close the cage but you escape, leaving me in your wake as you flit among the grass and flowers and trees.
I look back down at my white cage stained with little red puddles and wonder how you could have survived,
you lost so much blood, you seemed so weak, but looking closer I see.
The blood was not death as I had assumed it to be, but new life that you pumped throughout your wings, it was a necessary part of the life you lived, the cycle you made from caterpillar, to chrysalis, to new life as an amazing butterfly, through crawling, spinning, waiting, resting, and drawing strength from your God given body.

Your life puzzles me.

When I thought you were at death, you were beginning life. When I had bought you in caterpillar form,

I thought your whole life was fairly easy. How hard can it be to spin a chrysalis to hold your transforming being?

But it made you bleed.

You crawled and spun, only to wait upon the strength you were promised by your creator. But You waited patiently and didn’t force the cycle put in place. When you broke through your chrysalis, you waited again, clinging tightly to your house and flapping dutifully as your wings came to life and flaunted your colors for everyone to see.

When I thought your creator had failed miserably, you proved me wrong and soared on the wings you knew would flap eventually.

You knew you would fly.

You didn’t lay down and die.

You trusted and innocently fluttered your faith into my life.

I am filled with wonder and amazement at the lifestyle at which you lived. You waited patiently on your creator and dutifully obeyed the instincts given by the one who designed your many eyes and intricate colors and unique development to show the world your testimony to life.    
       
 

Reviews

[Brette Medb]

An amazing story is told here. The flow really helped it and it is something that should be remembered in our own lives. Man tends to try and rush mother nature, always wanting to be just a little bit older and then by the time we mature we wish to be young again. Patience and understanding are often left out of life but this is a valuable lesson in this poem. Great write.

Brette

[Nancy Lee Shrader]

A great story of the life process . Amazing write.

[jumbie's #1 fan]

This is sooooooooo good! I love how this poem is more of a story and how you used an actual experience from something seemingly insignificant and really applied to human life. this is truly amazing.