Daybreak, you carried on your fragile wings,

Glints and rays of petaled gems your fortune brings,

Open-handed, Mother Earth once tossed you down,

Gathered then, our love its greatest relics found.

Eyes opened wide again, flat-backed on hills,

Rustling weeds our swaying sorrow stills,

High into the sky your flight unwinds this maze,

Grown long within the hollows of a storm cloud’s gaze.

You are the day, though night its tattered mantle brings,

A heart of darkness trampling nature’s smallest things,

Softest flesh now hidden beneath a thicker skin,

Wrapped tight to hold your coming transformation in.

We’ll get lost there with the Monarchs where they’ll never find us,

Not the fields of gold, nor trees of fire, will ever mind us,

They’ll think we are just-shed cocoons of rarest butterflies,

And miss out on the glory that our common shell belies.