Fenced In

Where am I going? North, south, east and west
have no meaning.

Where am I going? Up and down, out and around
are equally meaningless.

I am fenced in by my freedom. Because the
geographical direction, and distance from the
center of the earth are not the point.

The real point is that since I newly don’t know
who I am, there’s no I to go anywhere, so the
invisible, non-existent fence is all it takes to
hold me in place.

I used to think I knew who I was. Cowardly in
the outer world, powerless, I try to use the
little freedom that is my lot.

Tried to use it and thus fertilize it. Let it grow.
So who am I?

The swallowtail chrysalis appears unchanged from
last week. It had turned brown,
to match the coffee filter it was looking
at when it shed its skin, after first revealing the green of
the parsley it had consumed.

The monarch chrysalis has no such tricks up its sleeve.
It doesn’t need to. Its nature is to transmute itself in
place, on the milkweed, while the swallowtail needs to
be flexible, in case it’s caught by chill, and needs to
overwinter on dry vegetation.

My current confusion, I hope, is another step on the
road. The apparent inactivity of the chrysalis.

The swallowtail still hangs, brown, from the drying
parsley stem it chose, rather than the sturdier plastic
spoon I offered it. But the monarch chrysalis, overnight,
or at least since yesterday morning, has turned black.
That means that the chrysalis has actually clarified.
Become its namesake’s material, while the insect
within has formed, its black and orange pattern now
visible within, if you know how to look.