Please Consider the Caterpillar

If it chooses a leaf of an apple tree to chomp or it crawls on the ground as he gathers up dust and god knows what on his sticky suction-feet as he inches along and risks in his favor being squished by a tire of a bike, or a large squarish toe that may come down and end the creature evermore. Perhaps it is scooped up in the pudgy hands of a boy and placed in a jar that is all but manageable to balance between his chin and the rim of his bicycle handlebars as he travels homeward and places the jar and the thing in a window where it may be poked with a stick or smashed by stone and shaken beyond repair in a clinking translucent cell. If, however, the young insect chooses to cling to the safety of its tree at least never being beaten, smashed, or shaken; no harm to him has been visited. It strays only a few feet, to roam and to eat. And it picks a sweet spot just to build a cocoon just living the dream of an old fashioned bug. He entombs himself up in a cask of its making from either fear of a boy or maybe he’s bored. So he hides fast away from the light of the world and maybe the wind and the rain shake the tree, maybe he suffocates when a lazy child forgets to poke holes in the prison lid. Perhaps the sun shines too hot and too long and toasts the poor beast before it’s time. Regardless of risks and the choices he’s made; a boy and a jar or a purported safe limb, if all goes as nature intends in his plan, the creature will grow and once again stir; the creature will labor itself from that pill. It will surface with pride and broaden its wings. Charging his choices for present results. In conscious reality, friends, what do you expect? Regardless of choices, location and consequence, it emerges upright, no surprises—a butterfly.