This poem is the award-winning work of Lan Xin for the Apollo Dionisiaco International Prize for Poetry and Art in Rome, Italy.

Funeral of the Butterfly

Poem by Lan Xin(Lanxin Samei)

Breaking out of the cocoon to become a butterfly,

begin a beautiful life.

Clinging to flight,

chase the love ahead.

Yet,

O butterfly,

what has veiled your eyes,

making you see mirages as happy hours?

What has veiled your eyes,

taking burning flames for pure light?

What has veiled your sight,

mistaking a funeral for a wedding?

This is the funeral of the butterfly.

Love is that tomb,

obsession, the courage to fly into fire.

If this is destined to be a funeral,

what is buried is the butterfly’s heart.

Yet it will not end here;

another heart will grow anew.

This is the funeral of the butterfly,

and also the butterfly’s rebirth.

Where it ends,

there it is born again.