Along with Rob Evans the Donut Man, who sang Jesus’ parables into our hearts, we met Calvin Miller at a Sunday School conference in Peoria, Illinois in the early 1990’s. A few years earlier this Baptist pastor published a trilogy of stories about Jesus: The Singer, The Song and The Finale, which settled his reputation as both a writer and a pastor.
One of his poems speaks to my child’s heart about God’s good work in the darkness, outside our awareness. “Catherine Caterpillar” is published in a book of his poetry entitled When the Aardvark Parked on the Ark.”
Mother caterpillar turned to her daughter one day
And said, “My sweet Catherine, I’m going away
And I cannot come back – I’m sorry to say.”
She clipped the last threads on her bright new cocoon
And then turned to Catherine again.
“Well, Cathy, I’m going in now –
Are you sure you quite understand?
Can you spin the webbing and knit the silk threads
And fleece the insides of your own little pod?”
“Yes, Mother, I can,” said Catherine Caterpillar.
I’ve woven the uprights, just as you said
And tied off three hundred and seventy threads.
I am sure that before the birth of the moon
I’ll be more than prepared for my own cocoon.”
They kissed goodbye on a dried milk-pod twig
And the old woolly worm adjusted her wig
And crawled on into her vacant cocoon.
Catherine was scared, “Is it true I will lose all my legs …”
“Yes, Catherine, almost – you get to keep six.”
“Only six – oh, what then?”
Her mother knitted the last thirty threads
And answered her from her own downy bed.
“Catherine, you’ll never walk, ever again!”
She pulled the last threads and closed her cocoon
And was gone.
Cathy spent thirteen days weaving and webbing,
Packing in fleece and cutting the threads.
When the day at last came to enter her pod,
Catherine looked sadly down at her two hundred legs
And spoke very sharply to God:
“God, this is Catherine Caterpillar
I don’t mean to gripe, but you haven’t been fair,
And I haven’t got long now to talk,
Already I feel a frost in the air.
But God, it’s like this, I’ve two hundred legs
And while it’s an effort to climb up a stalk,
I enjoy so much just crawling along
and taking a nice autumn walk.
Please God, if you don’t mind, could I keep my legs?”
But God only smiled and pulled out the moon …
Catherine looked down at her two hundred legs
And stomped her way into her fleecy cocoon.
For a hundred and seventy days the frost gathered.
God smiled as snowflakes piled high on the thread
And Catherine slept warm in her soft fleecy bed.
Seven cold moons smiled down on the snow
‘Til in May God came rapping on Catherine’s cocoon.
“It’s terribly dark,” said Catherine in fright,
“I must clip these threads and let in some light.”
She chewed through her webbing and cut the silk threads
And crawled out and stretched, then suddenly thought
As she looked at her bed,
“My legs are gone! Oh, what will I do? I cannot go far.”
Then she looked and saw a winged creature who
Landed in splendor on the old milkpod twig.
“Catherine Caterpillar, the morning is bright!”
“Mother, it’s you! Oh I’ve lost all my legs, I think I will die!”
“Nonsense,” Mom said.
“You’re at the beginning of life! You’re not going to die.
You’re through crawling, dear Catherine,
Look up at the sky!
When God takes our legs, he expects us to fly!”
Catherine looked back at the weathered cocoon and
Tried her new wings. They both rose and flew!
“I never knew, Mother, that skies were so blue.”
“Stretch out your wings and float on the wind
And tell me, do you want to be what you’ve been,
And crawl in the dust and have legs once again?”
“Oh Mother, I’m flying! Today all is sky
And surely God’s watching as we flutter by.
He watches the winters and guards the cocoons
And smiles while the snow falls beneath icy moons.
He laught at our fears while the winter wind sings,
And wakes us to fly on filagreed wings.”
