Butterfly

A Rarity

A Monarch butterfly, regal wanderer,

flies from the bottom of the world over

field and meadow, prairie and city, her

migration secret,  always unfollowed.

Such rarity, a welcome migrant in

a hostile land, queen of all her domain.

Dark-veined, extravagant, she flies on stained-

glass wings of ochre, tawny citrus and the

darkest ebony.  She craves the sweetest

milkweed, not for her the parched aridity

of stony common land laced with groundsel,

or ragwort, that noxious old-man-of-the-spring.

For scarcity value she is priceless;

no-one’s familiar, no mere butterfly

which is quickly viewed and soon forgotten 

 

Cait O’Connor