…
The butterflies of spring are small and dark
not colorful and bright like butterflies
of summer hovering from flower to flower
in beauty’s camouflage. Two butterflies
on the asphalt road laid with silver stone
though small stand out. Because they’re dark I see
wings lined with white flutter and rise up, gone
in blurry jagged flight through the bare trees.
Where branches, rusty buds blow in the wind
there I lose sight of them like a prayer
vanishes when other thoughts intrude. In
the woods a bird whistles and I’m aware
of the three notes, a path I do not know
although I’ve walked here many times before.