Summary

The website content is an invitation to poets to write about their personal metamorphosis, inspired by the beauty and symbolism of butterflies, particularly the endangered Blue Morpho.

Abstract

The author of the content reflects on an encounter with a butterfly and the profound impact it had, leading to a meditation on the beauty and complexity of these creatures. The Blue Morpho butterfly, with its iridescent blue wings, is highlighted for its endangered status and unique defense mechanism involving wing scales that create a prismatic effect. The author uses the butterfly's transformation and flight as a metaphor for personal growth and change, encouraging poets to explore their own "wings" through poetry. The piece also provides practical instructions for poets to participate in a poetry prompt, with guidelines on how to tag and submit their work.

Opinions

The author expresses a deep appreciation for the wonder of butterflies, considering their transformation akin to a spiritual or personally inspiring experience.
There is an admiration for the butterfly's life cycle and anatomy, particularly the protective function of eyespots and the Blue Morpho's unique wing scales.
The author views the Blue Morpho's striking blue color as a paradoxical trait that is both beautiful and risky for the butterfly's survival, yet essential to its identity.
The author believes in the power of poetry to capture and convey personal transformation, encouraging others to express their own experiences with growth and change.
There is a sense of urgency and advocacy for the preservation of the Blue Morpho, given its endangered status and the rarity of blue coloration in nature.
The piece conveys a sense of community and shared purpose among poets, inviting them to contribute to a collective body of work inspired by the POMprompts.

POMprompt #29: Be a Butterfly

Wing of a Blue Morpho butterfly, Photo by Jeremy Zero on Unsplash

This morning I stepped out on my deck with my morning coffee and was greeted by a butterfly, perched on the railing. It’s hard not to contemplate some kind of divine or spiritual appointment when one has an encounter with a butterfly. Or, if you’re the un-spiritual type, you at least find some personal inspiration reflected back from those velvety wings.

Some of you may know, I’ve a thing for butterflies. In fact, my first “big hit” here on Medium was a poem I wrote about butterflies back when MPP was based on claps and this poem earned an actual $18 bucks (whoa!). Here’s that poem, if you have yet to read it. It’s kind of a signature piece of mine and featured in my first book. Now, back to what I was saying about butterflies…

There are few things in nature so wondrous as a butterfly. Partly due to their unique anatomy and partly to their fascinating life cycle.

They spend the first part of their brief lives* crawling everywhere they go. Across the ground, across rocks and grass, and eventually up a tree or bush and settling into this bulbous form that transforms them. They emerge with wings and take to the sky for the duration of their lives, going further than they ever could have gone in their caterpillar stage.

*Most butterfly species live less than 2 weeks. For some species, adults-only live for 2 days. No adult butterfly lives for more than a year. (source)

Wings, themselves, are worthy of contemplation. Some of them have eyespots, which is a defense mechanism built into the flashiest part of their body, to threaten predators or trick them into thinking the butterfly is more than a small insect. Those eyespots are designed to look like the eyes of other, scarier things in the same ecological landscape in which the butterfly lives. This trickery keeps the butterfly safe.

Butterflies are colored from the quiet, camouflaged browns, grays, and tans, to brilliant yellows, oranges, and in the case of the Blue Morpho butterfly, an iridescent blue.

Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting two different butterfly houses. One was at the lovely Airlie Gardens in Wilmington, NC and the other was at the North Carolina Zoological Park at Asheboro, where I got to see dozens of these Blue Morpho butterflies; and they were absolutely magical.

The Blue Morpho butterfly is endangered. It is one of the largest butterflies in the world (can grow to the size of a small dinner plate!) and one of the few occurrences of blue that can be found in nature. So then, my inquiring poetic mind must know — why be blue, and a bright flashy blue at that, if it makes you stand out like a dancing fairy in the trees? Wouldn’t the birds just scoop right down and gobble you up? It seems reckless of a butterfly that lives mere weeks to parade about in such dashing attire. Yet, they are designed to be breathtakingly beautiful, anyway.

It turns out, even the Blue Morpho has a trick. Scales. Their wings are scaled so they collect light in a different way and send it back out like a prism; which gives them that fairy-like dance in the air that wows the eyes — but confuses the predators. It’s like a “now you see me” and “now you don’t!” kind of thing that keeps the butterflies safe.

And of course, as I sipped my coffee this morning, and as butterflies often do for me, this got me thinking. Thinking about my own “wings.” What they look like. How they serve me. How hard it’s been for me to accept the change of growing them, and then to learn how to use them for the flights I am meant to take.

Clearly, I am being metaphorical, but this is poetry — that’s both allowed and encouraged.

So, I ask you, dear poet. Would you like to tell us about your wings?

You can do this in many ways through your poem, but here are some thoughts and questions to get you going…choose whatever resonates with you or use any of it as a springboard:

How did you get your wings? Was it a difficult and long ordeal? Were they given to you? Did you struggle or suffer or was it a matter of hard determination? Or were your wings divinely inspired and formed? Tell us about how you got your wings…or if you still don’t have them. Maybe your metamorphosis has just begun?
What do your wings look like? What are they made of? Cold, hardened steel? Lace? The limbs of trees? Fabric and buttons? Tell us what your wings look like to you. Why do you envision they take on this form?
How do your wings serve you? Protect you? Where do they take you? How do you feel about your wings? Tell us about your journey — with the wings of poetry lifting you into flight. Take us on a journey with your new wings — where might we go? What might we see?
Be that visiting butterfly with a message or an inspiration or maybe even a warning. What thoughts do you bring in with the sails of your wings riding the wind. You stopped…here…to tell us something. What is it? We are listening.

As a reminder, please refer to the rules for doing POMprompts. It isn’t too hard to participate. You write a poem inspired from reading the POMprompt. There are no time constraints on any of the POMprompts so you can do any of them any time you wish.

Tag this post at the bottom of your submission (no matter where you choose to submit it) and then use the appropriate tag for your post: “pomprompt”. (ONE WORD — Just type it into the tag box and hit enter. If a two-word pom prompt pops up just ignore that one. Type it as one word and hit enter. I promise, it works. This is so your entry will appear both on the homepage of The POM and on the POMprompts tab, but also so if you publish elsewhere, our readers can find it easier by searching for POMprompt entries on Medium.)

Thanks to all our POMpoets and POM readers who show up here every day for their daily dose of poetry. Visit our POMprompts tab to see how many wonderful POMprompts we have and all the poem responses which are published with The POM.

Happy poeting my little butterflies! Even you scary ones 😊…let’s get creative with this one! I want butterflies of all kinds! Go…go….go!)