Butterfly

A gray, decaying cocoon
lies snug up against
a Sunday plate-glass window.
All that can be seen
is the jeans-covered ****
of some homeless person.
Charity blankets never
cover everything at once.
At the edges
of the chrysalis is
a banner from some parade,
wrapped like a royal-blue
winding cloth.
What emerges as
the sun floats high, could
hardly be called a butterfly.
It is the old man who
sits, nodding, by a square
of cardboard, hand out for change.
His unfurled banner lies, catching
breezes nearby.
His old gray blanket bleeds
his stink into the street.
He waits for the hour
when he can bind himself
to his bottle, squirming back
into his corner.

I was just five years old,
and Montana springs can be very cold.
It was time to go hunting for some
poor creature, men with rifles bold.

Off we trekked to the Bitterroot Valley.
A line of cars and pickups a mile long.
Hunting camp set up by the men first.
Then the women with bustle strong.


Daddy led me by the hand to a place
where the water was knee deep
to a giraffe...but I had rubber boots with
a yellow ducky,  that never made a peep.

Suddenly adults were flying and crying,
running here and there in fearsome flight.
I did not understand what gave these folks
such a sudden and terribly awful fright.

Seems I stepped in a rattlesnake nest,
I thought they were cute little worms.
I wanted to get one for daddy’s fishing,
so I started to reach toward the squirms.

Now, baby rattlers can bite seriously,
but I had red boots with a yellow ducky,
and their furious little bites were not
able to bite, through boots...Lucky.

But those fingers reached out - well,
they were snatched by an aunt who wailed,
and no one told me why they were so tense,
to each other the story was detailed.

Innocent as lamb was I about those
reptiles that looked so cute and harmless.
I never knew my auntie had saved me
from being bitten and  being armless.





Post Comments

Born of cosmic particles of light
she is beauty beyond imagining.
When she clasps her hands
in contemplation, suns are born,
the moon rides high on her shoulders.
Diviner of the universe, boundless
power born of the goodness
that encompasses all and endless.