Stephen W. Cahill - Scatterpillars

Scatterpillars
by
Stephen W. Cahill

I met a scatterpillar
on a quiet country road.
He flashed a grin, a cheeky wink
and turned into a toad!

He hopped and hopped. I pleaded "Stop!"
so I could ask him why
he hadn’t changed himself into
a pretty butterfly.

"Because," he said, "I love to hop."
but when he saw the lake
he speedily transformed into
a slippy slidey snake.

He slithered to the water's edge.
Again I questioned why
he hadn’t changed himself into
a pretty butterfly.

"Because," he said, "I love to slide."
Then whooosh! He was a fish.
He slipped into the water
where he thrashy splashy splished.

He swerved with verve. He swimmy swam.
I hollered to him why
he hadn’t changed himself into
a pretty butterfly.

"Because," he said, "I love to swim."
And when he reached the shore
became a nutty squirrel,
and off he went once more.

He scurried up the nearest tree
and still I wondered why
he hadn’t changed himself into
a pretty butterfly.

"Because," he said, "I love to climb."
He glanced up at the sky..
"Aha!", I said, "At last you’ll be
a pretty butterfly."

But no, he said, "I feel today
a butterfly’s too small."
and grew into a dragon
that was twenty meters tall!

Away up high into the sky
he twirled and swirled and flew
then swooped back down
and scooped me up, and that was when I knew:

When scatterpillars shed their skin,
whatever one expects,
adventure isn’t far away.
Imagine what comes next..

©Stephen W. Cahill. All rights reserved.

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Let's go to the archives and see... yes... yes... welcome Stephen W. Cahill, the first poet from Ireland to be part of 30 Poets/30 Days!

So, a little more than a year ago, Stephen entered Ed DeCaria's March Poetry Madness contest in its inaugural year. He'd never really concentrated on poetry before, but... well... why not have some fun? Since sometimes life is just like the movies, you know what happened next: he won! He became the very first recipient of The Thinkier (except that he didn't actually receive it as it never made it to Ireland. But that's another story entirely!).

Stephen's verses are wonderfully full of whimsy, finding that great balance of silly with smarts underneath. It was a blast being in the Madness with him, and I, for one, am so happy that he's kept writing and sharing his poems. I look forward to when we're talking about his books. Until then, I'm happy to be talking about his poetry here as part of 30 Poets/30 days.

Yesterday, Thalia Chaltas brought us Today's Topic. Tomorrow... Emily Jiang and Painting with Sound! For more on 30 Poets/30 Days and ways to follow along, please click here.