Butterfly Glory

DAILY POEMS FOR LENT 2024

Wild Sky

Enthralled by sun breaks,

you fire-dance on the air,

a fairy in a trance,

like a little wild sky on an idle day.

Eyes that See Nothing

Powerless against predators,

still you survive, wise as an owl,

taking to skies under shroud of night,

staring down proud enemies with eyes

that see nothing to fear.

Another War

You dip and turn in tight circles

like a Pearl Harbor Zero

over the muddy Rio Grande,

witness to another war of words and walls

against the world’s poor’s last stand.

Fragment of Tiger

You could pass for a fragment of tiger

there among the passion vines,

not hunting this time

but hiding by scent from stalking prey,

smelling like living another day.

Where You Started

It would be hard-hearted of me not to laugh,

watching you race along the treetop track,

chasing your rival away, and then back

to the very spot where you started.

Swoop of Yellow

Among your cousins you are famous

for being the swallowtail without a tail,

like a pioneer pumpkin without kin,

a swoop of yellow refusing

to come down from top of the tamarind.

Red Thread

Above the disturbed scene,

the ravaged clearing, you meet her there,

your twin, your queen, and the red thread

again dandles in unsettled air.

Stereotype

Boys with six basketballs

bouncing across their backs

show off for girls waving light yellow frills,

that stereotypical high school opera

plaguing even the Lepidoptera.

Not Nectar

Not nectar, but rotting breadfruit,

the ruined banana ashamed in its peel,

even human sweat banned to the camera strap,

you choose broken for your pieced together meal.

Your Macarena

King of the currents, you fly a thousand

miles over unknown terrain to reach

a place you have never been, from which

you will not return again, and this

your masterpiece, your Macarena.

Mud-Puddling

You and your buddies, mud-puddling on wet soil,

hungry for salt, toast bachelor days about to end.

Better this sludge than the skin of a passing spider monkey.

Adrenaline Junkie

You must be an adrenaline junkie,

feeding as you do on Caiman tears

after deliberately inflaming its eyes.

More than robbing the dragon’s lair,

you dare rouse the beast in order to feast

despite such disadvantage in size.

Phantom

You disappear against tree bark,

undiscoverable until you become

a haunting phantom, taunting with your belly rods,

a sound like bacon frying in a pan, some

wooing or warning from the butterfly gods.

Another Night

The leaves of purple passion flowers

pack you with a punch of toxin

keeping back the hungry hunter,

enabling the nightly soiree

on the branch with seventy brothers.

Polymorphic

The genius of the genus, you

championing the individual,

eschewing the rote print on wings;

instead dividing Joseph’s coat:

blue, orange, red, cream;

butterflies bowing down before you in a dream.

Chastity Belt

She already carries your baby,

but you can’t stand the thought of another suitor.

Marking her with love repellant should subdue her

temptation to flirt around. Maybe.

Gold

They tell me you only have one month to live.

That’s not a lot of time to run the rainbow,

pave the way with, make a heart of it.

Fly today, then, like the worth of your weight

is fully measured in each part of it.

Waiting to Pounce

I’m sorry. You must hear them pounding

at your chrysalis door, waiting to pounce

the very minute you step outside,

to make a mother of you before

your own rebirth has even had a chance to dry.

Superpower

Along the busy forest corridors,

butterflies of all stripes mingle

in acrobatics without collision,

most on lookout for a mate.

Were it not for your upgrade—

actual ultraviolet vision—

you might very well make a mistake.

Clique

I wonder if you feel sad

when it comes time to fly the coop

after a whole life lived in such a tight group?

Eggs in a cluster, caterpillar club,

another’s molting you were a mirror of;

everyone on the same track,

even moving together into a chrysalis cul de sac.

Best Hour at Hand

When time turns its back on summer,

trees turn their backs on leaves,

which flutter to the ground in showers,

announcing your best hour at hand

in flung fields offbfaded-orange cheer

into which you land with folding wings to disappear.

Fire Singing

Yesterday your metallic pupa

like a funhouse mirror imaged

not my face but a mangle instead.

Now you are here, the day still young,

swirling like wind around my head,

fire inspiring an untangled tongue.

Iridescence

Flash your azure, wing your lapis;

through the angling sunlight fly!

Admiral of the blue wave navy,

raise your cobalt flag and melt

away into the kindred sky.

Smile

Of all your kin in North America,

you claim the win for being biggest.

Is that why stamped across your back

is a smile as amped as a clown in a circus?

Or are you laughing, remembering the day

your pupa tongue, forked like a snake,

could scare your big-top enemies away?

Jealous Red

After mating, you plug your partner’s abdomen

so no one will dance with her ever again,

and all of the babies will faithfully spread

your unmistakable flashes of jealous red.

Overcompensating

I have heard the story that you will dare

chase a bird off your territory.

What has made you brave and bold

now that you are older? Ah, it must be

(hobbyist paparazzi wanna know!)

you spent your youth disguised as guano.

What Do They Know?

It is dusk and they are staring at you, ready to insist

you are the famed Painted Lady of their scouting quest.

At last your angled wing tips disqualify you from their list,

but what do they know of the rugged better beauty of the West?

Methuselah

You are Methuselah to all the short-livers,

stretching unthinkably to your year anniversary.

Chalk it up to that long summer nap

and a second siesta through the cold winter sprawl

snugy wrapped in your warm yellow shawl.

These are the Places

Over the vacant lot, strewn with Cotton thistle,

along the ragged fencerow stretching scraggly and free,

beside the hard-scrabbled road,

these are the places that find you

with your Aphrodite ready to fill such wide spaces

with your promising mighty progeny.

Better

The angry farmers are having a meeting.

Your children are wreaking havoc

among the rows of broccoli and cabbage.

Better your clan to stay out in the wild

than try reign in a hungry child.

Shake

Your velvety green wings blend so smoothly

into the texture of the Cedar

that either you remain incognito all day

or I rudely shake your branchy stay

just to catch your beauty.

Palanquin

Dusky blue you, light as a daydream,

floating in a pastel collage as a fancy pants prince,

your children carried along on a palanquin borne by such amiable ants.

Next Mascot

Your purple iridescence

against her orange makes a sweet snapshot.

If Clemson should ever tire of the tiger,

I vote you to be their next mascot.

Stained Glass Window

In the cathedral of the jungle

you are a glorious stained glass window,

melting into the kaleidoscopic color

like angels mingling in a crowded nave,

the men dressed to impress the ladies,

the ladies devout and busy with praise.

Bright Blue Streams

How the bright blue streams behind you,

double river waterfall, forever falling,

Grandma’s scarf fluttering in the wind,

two skis in tow toward the high hills,

blue swords holding back the chasing whip-poor-wills.

Like Your Namesake

Royal robed air dancer, you, like your namesake,

marvel the eye with a plumage sweepstake, and how,

too, his confidence sits in your hiss in the nights

scaring away the blind prowling mice.

THE END