Showing posts with label symbol of change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label symbol of change. Show all posts

Thursday, April 30, 2020

Kaleidoscope of Spring


Together, we once called them
'worms with wings'.
I thought of this
as my marriage died,tortuously
in the same way
it dawned upon me while
watching the 'Morning Cloak'
try to right itself
in the amber evening sun.

I had tossed the big black butterfly
outside on the patio concrete
after finding him
splayed flat, unmoving
on the kitchen floor
next to the smiling cat's
empty food bowl.

I was late serving dinner,
he offered his own.

That was many hours before
or many, many days
by butterfly time.
Stunned, I noticed, here he
miraculously
survived-only to be now
devoured piecemeal
by an army of ants.

A group of caterpillars
is also called an army.
A swarm of butterflies
is also a kaleidoscope.

His shredded wings
did not deter
the fight-
I couldn't watch.
I could not look away
at this dying symbol of change
reminding me,
sometimes
there is nothing we can do
to save another.



Artwork by Edward Mason Eggleston (1882-1941), 'A day in June' c. 1932 in Public Domain.

And then...

  Change is like that strong smell of cut grass or chopped wood that stops you still. Patterns, a symbol can be an illegible sign,  at first...