Theatroptera

Wrap us up in celluloid,
Bind our eyes; eternally shut out
The horrors of life and light and all but dreams.
Drug us with harmonies, oh drug us deep,
And let no discord
Split the hermetic chitin lapping us.
The sun would wither and the winter freeze
The larvae that we are. We dare not change;
We dare not risk the metamorphosis.

Of what avail
To grow and strive and put out clumsy wings
That tear, and drag you down as like as not?
Of what avail to fly
Shelterless, puppets of rain and wind,
And after a gaudy day or two to die?
Flowers we dare not trust
Except to hang on. Honey may be sour
Or sweet; we do not care. If once we break
The sheath, we cannot be again chrysalides.

Wiser far, forever incomplete,
Never to change, never to challenge life
To harden sense and sinew or destroy;
But cased in soothing celluloid to lie
Still rudimental, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon your love's unripening thorax;
Never to wake
And hazard the hurricane of consciousness.

Ah, let us always
Sleep, and sleeping spin a safe cocoon.
Inject us with the antidote to life;
Protect us from the growth of eyes and limbs,
And leave us ever pupae.

—H.W.G.

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