Cocoon
She looked at the thing
Lying on the window sill.
A cocoon, unopened, virgin
Lying await for the grand opening.
And as she stood there,
A small head appears
Peeking, with eyes so big,
Looking outside for the first time.
Breaking the shell of safety
The confines of home,
The little one crawls out
Into open light for the first time.
Even though the wings are stuck,
The eyes almost covered and
The legs wont hold
The thing wont stop trying
At last it succeeds,
It stand up on its feet,
Opens those color filled wings
And takes to flight, to live
She stands there looking
From within her shell, wobbly legs,
Stuck wings, blank eyes, in her cocoon
Wishing she could fly, she could.
7 comments:
Birds cannot aspire to be butterflies, can they.
However, a bird in a cage can still aspire to be free and fly like a butterfly, can she not?
What is wrong in aspiring to be something better? Capability to achieve it or not becomes a problem.But any one can aspire anything Nothing wrong in it am i right?
@ Anonymous
Poetry is personal. If it is aspiration then it is aspiration. And true, life is all about aspiring to be something better.
The difference between a caged bird and the butterfly in the cocoon is that while the cocoon was something the caterpiller created for itself, the bird did not choose to be caged. The butterfly's hiatus was intended; the bird's imprisonment was not. Hence the bird-butterfly comparison. The bird cannot aspire (I am talking about the ability here and not the mere wish or longing)for freedom since the cocoon is not its to break out of.
The bird might want freedom, but to compare itself with the butterfly which is on a totally different path altogether seems fallacious to me!
@Suchi
I can understand the fallacy of the comparision between the butterfly and the bird. I will give it you that the pupa's entrapment in a cocoon is of its own doing. However, even though I will accept the fact that the bird's is not of its own doing, it does not have the say in whether it is caged or not, for that is the imperative of someone else. When entrapped, one looks out and yearns for freedom. At that instant, the breaking free of a butterfly from a cocoon is as much as release as it would be if the bird were let free from the cage. The paths are different, I will accept, however, the result is the same, you are closed from the outside world. Does it matter how someone got to the place they are compared to what they want to be from there. The bird and butterfly comparision came about to illustrate the fact that the pupa has a choice of greater freedom. And it is that choice that was the key, a choice that is not available for the woman in the poem and my bird in a cage (which I think are the same thing!).
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