I’ve long believed that in another dimension or plane of existence, I worshiped the sun.  Probably as in Ent, or rather, most likely an Ent Wife.  In fact, that would make a great flash piece this morning, but my flitter-flutter brain is going in another direction.  Tell me what you think, and please join me with a flash piece of your own!

Snug in my chrysalis I listened to the memory song as it taught me and all the other butterflies about to emerge.  It sang of golden mornings, draped in sparkling dew.  Of purple popping seed heads and the rich hues of summer flowers, heady with the suns rays.  It taught us that we would be a part of that beauty, now that our crawling stage was behind us.  We would become a part of the world’s great wonders, and inspire creatures of drudgery with our fluttering beauty.  I smiled to myself, wondering what I would be, and the memory song swirled around me with images of butterflies so bright and colorful they looked like flying flowers.

Then, as the sun shone down, I knew it was time.  My chrysalis could no longer hold me and had become too warm.  I kicked and squirmed free of it, emerging on a long green leaf breathless with my birth.  Like a lady’s fan, my wings unfurled, and I let them drift in the breeze, drying them gently in the rays of the sun.  I looked around myself, and recognized the small garden in which I had emerged.  These cabbages were familiar to me–I’d known them as a caterpillar.  And I’d vaguely seen the radishes beside them and the neat rows of peas beyond those.

But now I lifted my eyes higher, to the roses across the gravel walk from the veggie patch, and above them to the small church by which the garden nestled.  Such beautiful stained glass windows I had never even imagined!  My eyes feasted on the shining colors and Heavenly beauty of the scenes crafted lovingly in those gorgeous windows, and my soul breathed out gratitude that their beauty was mine to enjoy.  Eagerly I turned my eyes on my wings–surely such splendor in color would be reflected in my own beauty.

Instead I saw only a blank canvas of white, as if the artist of life had forgotten to color in this corner.  My fuzzy legs came up scrub across my eyes, clearing my sight.  I looked again…but I was still white.  Around me other butterflies had crawled free, my sisters and brothers of this emergence.  And they, like me, were a fuzzy wisp of white without any color at all.  Each of us carried one or two black spots, but that was all.

I flung my eyes again to the stained glass windows above us, and fluttered up to rest on the seal.  By standing close beside the window I could bath in the reflected light and glow blue, or gold, but only if I stayed still and that is not the butterfly way.  Of course, the memory song had told us it would be our privilege to inspire the downtrodden with our beauty, and that now seemed impossible.  So perhaps there was no butterfly way for us, the cabbage whites.

I drifted down to rest among the rose bushes, thinking perhaps to hide myself in their heady scent.  As I fluttered there I heard a woman talking to her friend, saying sadly how she missed the sight of snow.  The woman was planning a winter pageant, and wondered how she would make it feel right when our warm and sunny climate encouraged lush green growth and banished all thoughts of snow and ice.  Her friend suggested fake this and plastic that, but the woman shook her head.  “I want to evoke the natural beauty of snow, the feel of its grace and quiet,” she said.

Her words swirled through me like the memory song, and I knew for what purpose we’d emerged.  Summoning the other cabbage whites, I led them in a fluttering flight across the garden to the prickly evergreen growing at the entrance to the garden.  We drifted down like snow and settled on it’s branches.

“Oh,” the woman cried.  “Look at that–just like a snowfall!  Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”

I smiled, and my wings drifted gently in the warm rays of the sun.

This is for all the kids (and big kids!) who watch the forecast anxiously, wishing for snow.  Me, I’m delighted to see we’ll have a warm, green Christmas.  Which do you prefer?

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