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Mar 2011
Yes, I have tried,
Sir Butterflies
O Butter Smooth and Red Samurai
I have tried to be carefree
like you both
like your eminent selves
flitting from one plant to another
not attached or fond of one
but coming and going as in necessity
I have tried
Sir Butter Smooth and Red Samurai
to be free of time
like you both
like your eminent selves
careless of the past
or what is to come
but still my mind wanders
into the inadequacies of the past
and the promises of the future
so that
O Sir Butterflies
Butter Smooth and Red Samurai
I am weighed down by attachment
and am pained by time
unlike you happy butterflies
merry and free
your life always in the moment…
Perhaps
Sir Butterflies
O Butter Smooth and Red Samurai
you should teach me…
Poem based on “A Philosopher watching a pair of butterflies,”  from Pictures after Nature an album by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) Japan 1814/19. (Japanese colored woodblock)
Raj Arumugam
Written by
Raj Arumugam  Australia
(Australia)   
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