This poem is not a new one for me. I wrote it several years ago after a long, dark struggle. I came across it tonight as I was looking through some old files, and again it spoke to me.

We are free. 

I wonder….

When the butterfly struggles

Out of the clenching confines

Of the dark cocoon

If it flies right away

Without a fear

Or a looking back over its wing

With a shudder, at the prison?

 

I wonder…

If without hesitation

It stretches its wings

And flutters away

No more to think of the long dark struggle

That lasted interminably

In that age long moment of not knowing

If daylight would ever be seen?

 

I wonder…

If it  ever thinks

It is still trapped back there

And forgets it has the means to fly

But struggles wingless in the dust

Trapped in a cocoon of the mind

Remembering the darkness?

 

I wonder…

If the butterfly ever fears the cocoon will come again

Or if it knows the freedom it has been given

Will last as long as the turning seasons

Bring out their shades of blue and gold and green?

And it goes dancing over the meadows

Free and unfettered?

I wonder….

 

March 2014