Butterflies

Freedom

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Freedom

We are all so lonely,
locked in our cardboard castles,
no view beyond the battlements,
save for the wild lands, the forest,
from which the enemy might come.

Wild beasts, we cage ourselves
in our isolation and bang our heads
on the bars we built to protect us.

Sometimes, at night, we ascend
to the topmost turret to observe
the stars that dance above us,
tracing our lives in their errant ways.

And is this freedom, this night sky,
with its wayward planets, trapped
in their overnight dance and weaving
our futures, for ever and ever, amen?

Silence

Silence

When I wait for words to come
and they refuse,
I know that silence is golden
and spreads its early morning sunlight
across the breakfast table
where yellow butter melts on hot toast.

Light from the rose window in Chartres
once spread its spectrum over my hands
and I bathed in its speckled glow.

My fingers stretched out before me
and I was speechless;
for in such glory,
mortal things like words cease to flow.

So much can never be said
even if it is sensed: fresh coffee,
poutine à pain, bread baking,
flowers bursting into bloom,

the sense of immanent beauty that fills me
when a butterfly lands on a flower in bloom,
or each time my beloved enters the room.

Finley at Two

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Finley at Two

Blood of my blood, my daughter’s daughter,
I live too far away to watch each day the laughter
on your lips, the sparkle of your eyes.

I see them when we Skype. Such a miracle
this magic machine that reduces distance
and time and brings you here to me.

I see you trying to stand, to understand,
to hold my image in your mind, to figure
out these moving shadows on the screen.

Words, born from poetry in my heart
and music on my lips, sometimes fall short,
and fail. Perhaps I should carve you a Welsh

love spoon. But time is not on my side. So brief,
this life: I wonder if we will ever meet again.

Commentary: Seeing Finley again, now aged four, has made me question all my earlier poems about her. I am overwhelmed by her energy, her interests, her concentration. I am bowled over by her flexibility, her strength, her joy in simple things. The above is not a new poem: it is a rewrite of an older poem, one that no longer served its purpose. I reshaped it as a sonnet, not traditional, but a sonnet none the less. I doubt that I will have much time on my own over the next two weeks in which to write. I guess I will pick away at this blog, adding a little something every so often, when the energy runs down and tranquility descends. Bear with me: I’ll be back.

Butterflies

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Butterflies

“Why did the butterfly flutter by?”
“Because she saw the dragonfly drink the flagon dry.”
That’s all you need to know about our raison d’être, our reason for being here, the meaning of life. Unless, like Bertrand Russell, The Meaning of Meaning, you think a cat is a dog or you know why “the beach wet” or how many turtles there are, on the way down.

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So many butterflies have visited us recently. We think the hollyhocks may have attracted them. But they seem to prefer the cone flowers. And the bees’ balm remains virtually without visitors.

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What exactly are these blessings that descend upon us? I don’t know. I have never seen this one before. A black swallowtail, according to my searches. But this is the first time we have seen one, let alone catch one on camera.

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According to my research, shallow at best, these Admirals mimic the Monarch Butterflies which taste so bitter that predators will not touch them. True or False (T / F): a multiple choice question that I cannot answer, for I have no personal or scientific knowledge, just opinions found on the web.

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What I do know, from personal experience, is that our little patch of garden is blessed by the presence of butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. We live in a treasure-house, pleasure-house of Nature. Long may it continue.