Butterfly Down

Butterfly Down

In the other vein, there is a saying
that time is too vain, especially
with our eye on the weather vane.

But I don’t subscribe to that way
of thinking, nor do I subscribe to
the news about death and flowers.

Simple windy days blowing leaves
across the road, that’s all I can see or
say, that’s all I will notice, at least now.

For you see, a wonderful zinnia has
been teaching terrible lessons that
beg me to chirp freely through the cold night,

sun going down sooner and coming up later,
zinnias crying but they’re not dead, and they
keep shining bravely out, beckoning in the sun of

the afternoon where my friend the Monarch
sits sipping softly on the stamen, wondering
how much longer its sweet nectar will

be there, wondering why the air has that pinch,
and hardly remembering all those days of
waiting in the wiry cocoon. All those days

of patience, all those days of delirious hope,
gone now with the dandelions, gone with the hot
dusty mornings, gone with the knowledge that

flying was a gift from the Sunflower, gone with the
little love note that the honeybee left for me,
gone with the song of the cicada; yet my chirps

are still here between my legs, as is the zinnia. But down
there in the dead leaves, in the soft dry leaves, down
there with just one little flutter; my Queen; down.