She asked me how she had come to me
On a sunny afternoon,
She couldn’t remember anything,
Her memories had flown.
She looked in awe at the dress she wore
And the sparkles on her shoes,
‘I didn’t have any of these before,
But what have I got to lose?’

I had her in mind for a Faery Queen
Or maybe a party girl,
I hadn’t a plot to fit right then
But thought I’d give her a whirl.
She had such grace and a lovely face
So I thought she’d fit right in,
And later, plenty of colour for
My lepidoptera tin.

She flittered and fluttered about the field
While I got my butterfly net,
She’d probably still be fluttering
If I hadn’t caught her yet.
But that’s how I catch my characters
That I fit in every plot,
I chase them round and I bring them down
Whether they want, or not.

The women are always butterflies,
The men are usually moths,
I struggle to keep the women sweet
But sometimes they are Goths.
As long as they play their part so well
That the reader doesn’t twig,
That all my casts are butterflies,
The small parts and the big.

For villains I use the Death’s Head Moth
For his markings are so grim,
But the innocent girls in chiffon are
The first to let him in,
He’s mean and cunning, and not so sweet
As the ones he seeks to fool,
But I am only the writer, so
Their conflict is my gruel.

I need to go where the sun is bright
And they flutter in the breeze,
To hold my butterfly net upright
And pursue them through the trees.
Then one day soon in the afternoon
I shall write a plot that sings,
And catch me a lepidoptera,
The one with the brightest wings!

David Lewis Paget