Do butterflies ever ponder their origins? I listened in to one:
(Flitter-flutter-flitter-flutter) I’m a butterfly!
I like to look down at the Earth as I flop around the sky,
But what I see is puzzling: I can’t help wondering why
I see no baby butterflies, however hard I try.
(Flitter-flutter-flitter-flutter) What I want to know
Is what are all those squidgy things a-wriggling down below?
All they seem to do is eat, and then they grow and grow!
Where do they all come from, and where do they all go?
(Flitter-flutter-flitter-flutter – there I go again!)
I sometimes wish I could have had a rather bigger brain
So I could work things out while I am sheltering from the rain.
But the answers all elude me, and my thinking’s all in vain.
(Flitter-flutter-flitter-flutter) A thought from out the blue:
If I was never a baby, then from what was it I grew?
Oh, surely not those wriggly things? No! How could that be true?
It really is a puzzle. Oh, how I wish I knew . . .
For the view from both sides, see Metamorphosis.