Emergence

(Found here)

If you have watched a moulting mantis

With exquisite precision and no less

Exquisite patience, extricate itself

Leaf-green and like a green leaf clinging

Little by little, leg by leg

Out of its chitin shell, you likewise know

How one day coaxes itself out of another

Slowly, slowly by imperceptible degrees

Of gray, and having fully emerged, pauses

To dry its wings.

~Robert Francis