Merril is hosting Poetics in the dVerse Poets Pub today ~ Butterflies are on her mind ~ and on ours as well. Words in color are butterfly names.
the sky has forgotten how to be blue
it hangs above Oregon like a grief
too heavy to name
its lungs full of ash
its heart beating in a frantic rhythm
forests collapsing into themselves
a cathedral of green
becoming a barrage of cinders
birdsong folded into silence
we search for something alive
LOOK ! butterflies
clouded yellow finding nectar
in flowers that insist on returning
orange sulphur lifting from fresh
clover like a small declaration
mourning cloak no longer mourning
but bearing witness
we cannot unburn the forests
but we can plant, rebuild porches
trails, homes and trust
we can plant one sapling beside another
one kindness next to another
until the land remembers itself
and perhaps the butterflies
[ who have always known
how impossible transformations begin ]
will find us there
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