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Posts Tagged ‘butterfly’

Playing with the Wild Child

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on November 22, 2025| 4 Comments »


 
 
Beckett doesn’t want to play butterfly anymore.
He wants to play band. He wants us to wear
our green plastic glasses with bright lights
that flash on the rims. He wants us to sing
about trains. And train tracks. And more train tracks.
Beckett names our two-person band the Sing Bells.
We have three greatest hits. All three feature
me on tambourine and vocals, Beckett
on kazoo and a small brass bell. I want
to make another song about books. Nope,
says Beckett. More train tracks. I think
of butterfly wings. How even the lightest
touch can damage the scales. How
one way to honor what is wild is by
letting it exist exactly as it is.
So the Sing Bells create another song
about train tracks that go all the way
to Beckett’s house. In his smile, I see
wings unfurling. When he leaps
off his stage for dinner, I swear I see him fly.

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Mud-Puddling

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 4, 2025| 8 Comments »


                  after James Crews, “Mud-Puddling”
 
 
Those were the years we gathered dark mud in our hands,
slathered it all over our legs, our bellies, our arms,
our faces, our hair, until only our lips and eyes
were not coated in thick river mud.
We did not know then we were mud-puddling
the way butterflies do, gathering essential nourishment
from what is fusty and damp and messy.
Is not pleasure one of the greatest nutrients of all?
How I loved going from clean to filthy, the slick mud heavy
on our skin before it dried and cracked in the sun.
We’d peel it off in chunks or in flakes,
then jump into the brown waters
of the Gunnison River and emerge less caked
but no less dirty. Perhaps this was training
for the heart, learning to let the self roll in the mess,
to treat the great muddle like a playground.
Then I still believed in a shiny version of happiness,
but fifteen years later, haven’t I come to trust there is something
nourishing in death, in ache, in turning toward fear—
something necessary I need to sustain me?
It is no surprise when I read that butterflies seek not just mud
but dung, rotting fruit, urine and carrion.
Oh heart, bless the wings of your intuition.
You know it does no good to fly only toward the beautiful.
Still it is not easy to choose what is messy, disordered, dank.
Perhaps it helps to remember now how much joy we once found
in that cold, blackish mud. When we were fully covered, I remember
how brilliant they were—our flashing eyes, our smiles so wide.

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Still Learning

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 9, 2021| 9 Comments »



Tonight when I see a photo
of myself from almost thirty years ago,
I stare at the woman in white lace
the way a butterfly might stare
at that strange nibbling larva—
curious. It doesn’t occur to me
to tell her about what will happen.
I flit by as she stays on the wall.
She’ll learn soon enough. I breathe
into my wings. She’ll learn.

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In Case You Ever Doubt Your Effect

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 8, 2019| 4 Comments »

 

 

 

Into this poem

I tucked a thousand

butterflies so when

you read it, they

flutter out—bright winged

and brilliant, each

a reminder of the

thousand gifts

you’ve given—

and also, though

it’s not easy to hide it

inside Times New Roman,

there’s a big brown bull,

stubborn and formidable.

He doesn’t care

about all those pretty bugs,

he just wants to get across

the message,

What you do matters.

If you doubt it,

just look at those nostrils,

just look at those horns.

 

 

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It Used to Rule Me

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 14, 2015| 3 Comments »

that old story—
I laugh now through the darkest part
and the weight breaks
into a thousand thousand
monarchs

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Butterfly Effect

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 21, 2012| 3 Comments »

Finn comes in, hands cupped
and asks me for a jar. What for?
I ask, and he lets me peek between

his palms to see the butterfly.
He is all aglow with the catching of it,
and I do not try to hide my regret.

Let it go, I say, it will be so much happier, love.
No, he shouts, and looks about
for a jar since I won’t help him out.

Please Finn, I say, let it go,
but he is intent on keeping
what is beautiful. He pokes holes

in the lid so the admiral can breathe,
gives it a yellow salsify and insists
that it’s sipping nectar. The butterfly,

all violent wing, flaps a long time before
settling beside the pretty weed.
Finn stares in the jar at his butterfly.

It is pure, his admiration for the
loveliness he sees, so pure that I squeeze him
tight, too tight perhaps, my arms

around the place he would have wings.

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Pin Up Haiku

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 15, 2012| 2 Comments »

yellow butterfly
so beautiful, wings spread
so dead

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Though We Don’t Hold On Haiku

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 21, 2012| 4 Comments »

long after it leaves
my arm, I still feel its footprints
the butterfly

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