Butterfly Lessons

There’s nothing in the caterpillar

to hint at what’s to come,

that it will unfurl into a butterfly

beneath the hush of summer sun.

The humble, drifting butterfly,

a small embodiment of joy,

raises little more than a smile

yet, can stir your pulse into the sky.

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They say its silent wing beats

can shift the shape of weather:

one flutter in a quiet garden

may birth a storm elsewhere.

“Just living,” the butterfly murmurs,

“is never quite enough.

One must also find the sunlight,

a flower, some freedom… and love.”

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Love, like the butterfly,

wanders where it pleases,

pleases where it lands

it glides upon the breezes,

sips gently from your hands.

Hold love, or a butterfly

just a fraction too tight

and you’ll crush the very thing

you meant to keep so alive and bright.

Yet should you hold it with detachment,

aloof, with casual air,

Then it’ll flutter from your fingers,

leaving nothing there.

So hold its beauty gently

with strength, and with care.

Reflect when you’re alone

on the quiet transformations

both love and the butterfly share.

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As I butterfly my way through angst and being

there are things I’ve learned while listening and seeing.

About netting butterfly moments

before they’re forgotten,

before the passion has worn,

before hope itself has gone.

Those butterfly moments I net with words.

and form into poems such as this, absurd

maybe, but they ensnare my careless reveries,

shape them, sculpt them, set them free.

.

And so we flutter through our days

with much to excite and enthrall…

The challenge, it seems, is to get so big

as to see and to know all.

Yet, as I wonder and watch the egos

scrambling higher and higher up the wall

the wiser flight, I’ve found, is not the climb or proud ascent at all.

Best to sit and watch the butterflies

and recall what it is, to be small.