A uniquely unified and poetic treatment of the butterfly and its life stages (egg, caterpillar, cocoon, butterfly) as a universal symbol for the stages of the journey of the human soul.
Reverend Forrest Church
Author of: Bringing God Home
All Souls Unitarian Universalist Congregation, NY:
"David Koenig illustrates the one true miracle, life itself, with reverence and humility in these simple and beautiful poems."
Written In The Stars
What seems
To be written
In the stars
When it crawls
From the egg,
Is that the caterpillar
Will hang its head
Low to the ground
For its whole existence,
Like most snakes
And other creeping things,
But the caterpillar
Labors hard against
What the stars
Seem to have decreed,
It spins a cape
Around its low shoulders,
Suspends itself
In a trance,
Becomes both magician
And magician’s assistant,
Seemingly vanishing,
But then by alchemy
Most startling,
Suddenly reappears
On a stage glittering
With new moon and stars,
It has made
A lightning costume change,
Now far from disappearing,
It takes center stage,
Head held high
And arms raised, as wings.
The Heroic Butterfly
The transformations
Of the soul
Are similar, it seems,
To the journey
Of the butterfly–
Both begin as an egg,
Then leave home
And roam the earth
As a green caterpillar,
Undergoing many
Tests of endurance,
Until each enters
The blue cocoon
Of the survivor,
Where they persevere
Until they are ready
To emerge into the world,
Unfolding their rainbows,
And the symmetry
And richness
Of their journeys–
To their inheritors.