Front Porch

FRONT PORCH

Tonight a larva will begin to feel

a burning back between the blades,

will start his pilgrimage to holy hills

on which he'll gather tight his shroud 

and terminate his dirt-infested stint. 

He'll likely deem it cancer, fate, write

his final will and testament, or poems

even, mourning for the brevity of life.  

But can't we empathize, my friend,

with this his groping, caterpillar mind,

incapable of apprehending the grand

immensity of butterfly reality? Time, 

a little grace, could reinvest the grub,

but now he'll nestle like a drop of rain

beneath the eaves. We'll wait and hope,

as if eternity were riding on an empty tomb.