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Metamorphosis

Tracing footsteps in the overgrown field
where sunlight and rain drops date
Counting sticker burrs like lemon drops
in a candy counter display
Hitchhikers I remember them called,
lovers of socks and pant legs I think
Each with their own story to tell,
minute worries clinging to that last hope of life

The path, familiar but then again not,
it leads somewhere else now
Dragging shadows like kite strings,
knotted in the weave of its boundaries
Taking in my surroundings and releasing them  
for another may find them useful as well,
I find still no sign of that last phrase,
spoken softly but misunderstood…is my understanding

A collection of stone and gravel stew
finds my shoe souls imaging in the dry dusty paste
Outlines of thoughts, perhaps poetry in oblong shapes and
perfect tread patterns stamped and posted,
showing no indication of my ever being here
Staring now at a cocoon on a lone branch, I see
what my life had been, dark and lonely, dreaming of the colors,
feeling confined but grateful for the transformation

You smiled, I smiled, my wings appeared and I flew,
as might a rainbow on a balloon, soaring until the tiniest speck
in the sky could be me or just something on your glasses
Light headed in a good way, free at last to define love,
the metamorphosis of my heart,
the changing of a man into more than he could hope to be,
seeking and finding that blossom,
sweet nectar, a sugary substance, love deep in the petals of life

Though, no one told me of the life span before hand,
no calendar hanging on my wall with circled dates highlighted in red,
nor a stamp of expiration anywhere on my heart,
good if used by…used by, funny I should write that now
as my attention rests still on this cocoon,
wondering where I went wrong,
somewhere on this path lies the answer…
for I once was a butterfly, just as you will be small cocoon,

at which time you will learn…

it is easier to fly with a heart that is unbroken