My mother would transplant butterfly cocoons she “farmed” in her backyard to her kindergarten and first grade classrooms at Kuntz Elementary School in Lawton, Oklahoma. There many of her students were able to witness the miracle of metamorphosis first-hand. Well before then my sister and I were her first students.

Lessons Mother Taught Us

She planted dill for Swallowtails
and milkweed where Monarchs would lay
their caterpillar offspring round
the grass green meadows of May.

The migrants returned then as always;
how quickly her crops were consumed!
But countless chrysalides dotted the dell
tucked inside their golden cocoons.

Then early one morning she beckoned
us watch the mystery unfold;
the metamorphosis almost complete,
translucent shells gave up their gold.

Wet wings greeted the rising sun
and the warmth of a soft summer breeze;
soon butterflies coloured meadow and wood,
floating gracefully throughout the trees.

She had taught us Christ would transform us,
and as we watched the born-agains soar,
so certain were we then of heaven
as if we had been there before.

Next poem: Father

Author: Jerry Dan Deutschendorf
from: Red Earth Whisperings
Part III: Family and Friends