ode to the snout-nosed butterfly

if you live south

look out

look out

you might demise

this little snout

i must have split

poor little wings

a thousand times

such fragile things

~

yet slicing through

these clouds of life

i thought to stop

upon the side

of littered roads

with bodies thin

& hold       one

death

against my skin

 

(c) d. ellis phelps

S nout-nosed butterflies have been migrating south through San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country for the past few days. High summer temperatures and drought plus recent  rains have caused the exact right climate for this phenomenon. The last time it occurred was in 2012. 

As I drove to lunch with a friend today, killing probably hundreds of these delicate creatures, their bodies, sacrificial on my windshield, on the grill of my GMC, I cringed & wondered how it might change our world (my world) if, when this kind of natural phenomenon occurs, we would stop:  declare a national holiday, pull up chairs beside the road, in the forests and witness, in reverie, these powerful mysteries happening right before our eyes.  

image:  “Leonard Cohen” used by permission of Bill Strain via Creative Commons.  Rights reserved.