WORM

Imagine a sausage a half a centimeter
Long, twitching, milky gray with splotches,
Animalcular, and here I watch
It swinging wide, incredible secreter

Of silky filament that stretches high
Invisibly into space to out of sight
From inside the windows, up to where the height
Of tree-limbs still belay the butterfly-

To-be, not yet with wings to find its way
Untethered. I’m safe in here. It (she or he?)
Weathers the breezes, the seething leaves, the sea,
The tides, this momentary trysting-day.

I wonder how to weigh his wormy chances,
Or mine. Meanwh1le he debonairly dances.

(35, July 21, 1992)

Comments

The caterpillar transforms by weaving a cocoon then everything inside turns into intelligent mush and finally transforms to a flying insect. And yet some training or memory has been proven to persist. See here.

What then is memory and intelligence?

[John Alvord 12/19/2025]