Awake

Butterfly or Moth

Rarely does Nature give so many choices as it gives us humans. What will we choose?

Curtains ripped apart, A harsh and unforgiving light Is cast, and we — Roused from somnolent insouciance —

Do we tuck and roll Our sleepy, caterpillar selves, To burrow deep, And deeper yet, seek sleep?

Or, casting cocoons aside, Stretch fragile, nascent wings — Becoming things — emerge — To face the awful freedom

Of a choice: To live, to fly, To wonder in the sunlit why — Or beat ourselves (and others) Senseless.

Against the darkening glass, Those things that might have been, become Pale shadows darting, to and fro, Till sucked into the guttering flame.