A beautiful, blazing blue butterfly, skims the tree tops. There she is, kissing the opening faces of smiley, welcoming daisies and daffodils, resting on a leaf-trimmed branch to listen to the murmuring stream flowing below.
The butterfly sees a wriggly green worm, inching along on a leaf beneath. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she remembers, ‘this is one of my own!” “Hello, sweet child!” she lovingly calls to him. The worm is so busy munching and inching, it’s not hearing her. A little frustrated, she lands directly in front of him, calling again, “Hello, my child!”
Well, the worm has to look up from his busy munching. In front of him is a blue-winged fantasy, like a dream! A little stunned and now a little curious, he asks, “Why would you call me ‘my child’, beautiful winged one? I am a worm, and I happen to be very busy munch-munch-munching, which of course I must continue with, right now.”
The butterfly laughs softly, “Ah, little one! It was from my egg, which I carefully placed underneath a strong leaf on this bush, that you came forth. You can’t see it now, but someday, you will be like me, free! Free to soar on the winds, free to float amongst and between the trees and the meadows, free to visit all the beautiful forests and flowers and ponds across the world!”
“Excuse me, but you must be mistaken,” says the little worm, politeu. “How could I be your child? I look nothing like you! I can’t fly, I have no wings. I inch, I munch. And excuse me, but, if I don’t continue munch-munch-munching, well, I don’t know what I’ll do!”
The butterfly smiles. “I, too, carry old, far away thoughts about inching and munching, little one. But mostly, I remember the first day – the waking in total darkness, the urgency to be free of the walls around me, the breaking through with these long thin limbs,. These wings were wet droopy puddles on my back until they dried! And now with very little effort they swish up and down and carry me up and away. ”
Swish and flutter, she flies up up and with a perfect graceful flip, lands back in front of worm. “That day, my first day! It’s so lovely riding the wind! It’s not until I saw you, my child, that I’ve remembered anything else. Somewhere, like a shadowy dream, there’s a hazy picture of feeling earthbound, of munching and inching. Maybe it’s all a story I heard long ago. You’ll find out soon enough!”
Worm thought about this a lot, and then asked “So, today, I inch, I munch, some tomorrow I go to sleep and wake up to fly the world…and after that, butterfly, then what?” The butterfly just flew off, laughing as she sailed away.