No longer Monarch of all it surveyed,
Danaus plexippus now views its lost empire
From a glass-walled prison;
Its possessor, a six-year old girl
With beaming smile and flashing eyes,
Holds her prize proudly before the camera.

Was it meant to be that such fragile beauty
Should be captured by the hand,
Or chartered by the eye?
The latter, it would seem,
For the eye follows fluttering wing
Traces flight maneuvers,
Perceives the spectacle of color,
So that dazzling Lepidoptera
Can bring music to the heart.

Hands that quarantine its quarry
Hold back its privileged grace;
We, too, become imprisoned
When our liberty is bottled
By the things that we possess.

With mother-love
And
Mid-wife skill,
And
An immensity of hope,
She monitored a wondrous metamorphosis:
A four-footed insect
Emerging from its chrysalis,
The golden sheath, the doorway
To its destiny
Of flowers, fragrance, flight, and freedom.

Wrapped in a chrysalis of awe,
She was prepared for a transformation of her own;
And so she emerged with the butterfly,
A wiser, happier child,
Reading in the root of nature
The loving Hand of God,
The deeply indelible recording
Of His Providential Care

And a prologue of the splendid form
His Hand has set for her.