My little butterfly#
Listen#
The Poem#
You are the apple of my eyes
Seeing you brightly shine
My heart melts to shiny slime
You starting your schooling
With million hopes and dreams
I long to see you shine!
You see, it's about a magical land
You can build, create, innovate!
But you can also destroy, and eliminate!
Of empathy, confidence, and courage
Your perseverance is the wand, and
Your knowledge thy spell
With a cheeky little grin,
Let the magic unfold
Let the knowledge begin
Of unicorns, fairies, glitters, and utopia!
Of tingle and tinker
Of awe and sympathy
Both to others and to yourself
And to never fear a failure
For they mean no harm, they are just to teach
One thought at a time
One problem at a time
One victory at a time
For you, to lead the way
To better future and better world
Do not let others dim you down, for you are to be found
Behind the Poem#
This poem was written in February 2021, on the morning of my daughter's first day of formal schooling—one of those threshold moments when everything shifts. As I watched her put on her uniform, excitement and nervousness competing on her face, I found myself overwhelmed by the weight of what this transition meant. Not just the logistical milestone of "starting school," but the symbolic opening of a much longer journey.
The imagery deliberately mixes the magical with the real. School is indeed a "magical land" where children can "build, create, innovate," but it's also where they first encounter competition, comparison, and the potential to "destroy, and eliminate." I didn't want to write a purely optimistic poem that glossed over these realities. Education is powerful precisely because it's transformative—and transformation always carries risk.
The reference to "perseverance is the wand, and your knowledge thy spell" connects to a recurring theme in my work, both technical and creative: the idea that capability comes from sustained effort (the wand—the tool you practice with) combined with accumulated understanding (the spell—the knowledge you've internalized). Neither alone is sufficient; magic requires both the artifact and the incantation.
"To never fear a failure / For they mean no harm, they are just to teach" represents what I hope to model as a parent in technical fields. My daughter sees me writing code that doesn't work, running experiments that fail, publishing papers that get rejected. She needs to understand that failure isn't aberration—it's instruction. This is doubly important for girls entering STEM, who often face additional pressure to be perfect rather than iterative.
The closing stanza—"Do not let others dim you down, for you are to be found"—acknowledges a harsh reality: the world will sometimes try to reduce her brightness, whether through bias, competition, or well-meaning but limiting expectations. The grammatical reversal ("to be found" rather than "to be found out") is intentional: she's not something to discover, but someone discovering herself.
This poem connects thematically to the Curious Cassie children's book series, which emerged from similar observations about how we introduce children to learning. Both ask: how do we nurture curiosity while preparing kids for genuine challenges? How do we celebrate discovery without pretending it's always easy or safe?
Inspiration: My daughter's first day of "big school," February 2021. The poem written in the quiet morning hours before we left, when the house felt suspended between her past as a toddler and her future as a student.
Personal note: She's now older, navigating that magical land with increasing independence. The advice in this poem remains what I tell her when things get hard—which they inevitably do, because that's what growth requires. The journey of empowerment, empathy, confidence, and courage isn't a smooth path. It's exactly as messy, challenging, and worthwhile as I suspected that February morning.
Reading time: ~2 minutes, or one morning commute to school filled with hopes and fears.