Creative Writing Ink November 2018 Winner

The Butterfly

William Lythgoe

The other night, or possibly

around three hundred years BC

I dreamed I was a butterfly,

free to follow a random breeze

yet always landing

on a flower.

 

I don’t know why.

It could have been

because I know, in China

over two thousand years ago,

a man whose name was Zhuangzi

told a story

 

that could have been true

about a man called Chuang Chou

who dreamed he was a butterfly

free to follow a random breeze

yet always landing

on a flower.

 

When he awoke

he didn’t know

whether he was Chuang Chou

who had dreamed he was a butterfly,

or a butterfly dreaming

he was Chuang Chou.

 

When I awoke

I thought I knew

I wasn’t a butterfly or Chuang Chou.

But who am I? Could I be

A man whose name was Zhuangzi

dreaming he was me?

 

 

Menu