Prided on patience,
I wait and watch the world around me,
Cocooned, concealed, keeping countenance.
Wings full-grown, but folded.
Eyes, mind, sharp but blinded.
All attempts to emerge, impeded.
Restrained by ripples of racing rain,
Suppressed by sight of spying sparrows,
Until at last, clear day.

All things are different,
Past ways of thinking shifted,
New selves finding old selves drifted,
Lines and patterns listed,
Ready to resume my business:
A brand new camouflaged moth,
I leave the cocoon, optimistic.

Never the right time.
Fated to fail, my feelings flatten,
Myriad moth-kin made up their minds,
"You were never meant to emerge,"
Cognitions confirmed by cousins cross.
Shut down surely by shame and chagrin,
This new skin, these wings, all taciturn,
Underneath, I'm still the same old worm.