Sunday, March 16, 2014

Chrysalid prayers

Wings glisten in her homespun sleeping bag of spit and leaf.
Metamorphosis has forgiven past-life crawlings.
Now she builds a second shadow,
her spirit already flying in the meadows.

Weightless, it kneels on hyacinth,
dreams of fashions for her maiden flight.
Shall she appear as a blemish-free bride
or choose the veil of the widow?
Or will she emerge, premiere danseuse,
in regal alae to trace an allemande
to the whistles of Bob Lincoln?

But how can a chrysalis on a flight of fancy
intuit the wind, the blood in the chalice,
or the sharp beak of the finch?
Sunswept through summer, she is
sacred among ephemera.