The monarch butterfly seems happy on
the butterfly bush. Purple flowers
sway, seaweed in the breeze.
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I am happy looking down on the monarch’s
slowly beating wings. Not all bushes lead to
extinction. Not all eyes stare into a
mirror. Or a void.
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I saw a dragonfly rise 50 feet into
the air. I saw a dragonfly stand on a beach rose.
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I cracked abalone & tossed it to a seagull.
Who didn’t understand.
Then ate the abalone.
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None of us have given a speech in front of parliament.
Accompanied Josiah Shackford on a voyage across
the Atlantic. The butterfly would be
the most skilled at this.
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A boy, I ran my fingertips across
the soft striped bodies of monarch caterpillars.
They were as common as little kids
who love caterpillars.
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When I go on a trip, I take
my existence in a backpack.
Ötzi the Iceman carried a leather
pouch that carried his life.
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We are given an environment when we
incarnate & some of us know the law of
the land – how to climb up out of
the water on a reed, leave one
exoskeleton behind us as we puff out our new
sets of wings in the sun.
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Some of us can anticipate where the fly
will be, not where the fly is now. Some of us
transform across the elements & some
of us forgot how.