Chrysalis Diary by Paul Fleischman

Part 1

Cold told me
to fasten my feet
to this branch

to shed my skin,

and I have obeyed.

December 6:

the color of leaves and life,
has vanished!

lies in ruins!
I study the
brown new world around me.

I hear few sounds.

Swinging back and forth
in the wind,
I feel immeasurably alone.

I can make out snow falling.

I find I never tire of
watching the flakes
in their multitudes
passing my window.

Astounding.
I enter these
wondrous events
in my chronicle

February 12:

Unable to see out
at all this morning.

and branches falling.

ponder their import,

and wait for more.

I wonder whether
I am the same being
who started this diary.

like the weather without.

my legs are dissolving,

my body’s not mine.
This morning,
a breeze from the south,
strangely fragrant,

a faint glimpse of green
in the branches.

Part 2

November 13:

to dangle upside down
from my perch,

to cease being a caterpillar
and I have obeyed.

Green,

has vanished!
The empire of leaves
lies in ruins!

I fear the future.

Have any others of my kind
survived this cataclysm?

January 4:

For five days and nights
it’s been drifting down.

The world is now white.
Astounding.

knowing no reader
would believe me.

An ice storm last night.

Yet I hear boughs cracking

Hungry for sounds
in this silent world,
I cherish these,

miser them away
in my memory,
and wait for more.

March 28:

I’ve felt stormy inside

My mouth is reshaping,

Wings are growing
my body’s not mine.

a red-winged blackbird’s
call in the distance,

And now I recall
that last night
I dreamt of flying