Butterfly I

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I found a square of paper in the trash

a sticky yellow quadrilateral

I found an empty parallelogram

the blank plane of a bright golden rhombus

I found a square of paper, a Post-it

like a women net, discarded as trash

I found a thought that fluttered by, dark-ink

flowing, blue-script trapped between right angles


                    The inspiration of a butterfly


Nobokov was in love with butterflies

he loved the subtle variegations

the micro-changes in coloration

he spilt more ink recording these, than he

ever did composing prose and fiction

the butterfly's wings, marked their migrations

As a child I was cautioned to take care

with the butterflies, warned not to touch them

lest I brush the magic dust from their wings


                    The butterflies are pixie-like, floating

                    flying, they are gravity defying


Barrie wrote, that with a sprinkle of dust

and a laugh, his heroine took the skies

going to battle with a pirate, whose

only fear was time, the tick-tock turning

of the clocks constant hands, filled Hook with dread

Wendy fought for the pipe-playing-boy-god

laughing she flew with a Titan named Pan


All butterflies bear the image of god

the horned-one, dancing spritely in the wind

goat-footed Pan the God of wild places

timeless Pan, God of loneliness...madness

Pan, the God of shock and feral desire

traits boys are taught to temper, or become

wild, lost in the haunts of the inner child


Nabokov loved butterflies...the chrysalis

he loved beauty, to witness it emerge

through the metamorphosis of a worm

he loved the heroes of a tragedy

anti-hero, the tragedy itself

the destruction of tyrants, and of self

he basked in the subversion, of old age

corruption, the morass of a wild youth

he loved the lament and caught in his pages

like a poem on a Post-It, the fragile

nature of longing, as delicate as

the netted butterfly, that once acquired

                    lives a few moments before it expires

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