PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

 If you read my poems I’m sure you can tell by the words I use

how often my child and adult are uniting…

but there are times, like today, when the adult in me takes a break

and I let my child do the writing.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate his input (yes this is his child speaking)

It’s just that sometimes I’m not after the same answers he is seeking.

Take today for instance…outside it started to sprinkle 

and as I watched a butterfly visit flowers in this part of her domain….

I stopped to ask that butterfly, “Where do you go when it rains”.

I’m pretty sure the adult in me knew the answer

(There’s a book about butterflies he keeps upon the shelf)

but I preferred to get my information from the butterfly herself.

She said, “I usually looks for safe and dry places…the same places I like to sleep at night

In a hollow of a tree, under leaves…somewhere I can protect my leaves for flight.”

As the rain came down a little harder…she said, “Come and follow me!”

then she flew and found some refuge in a nearby blue spruce tree.

She said,  “We butterflies are lucky…Mother Nature has provided us a brain…

that allows us to find natural umbrellas that shelter us from the rain”.

As we spoke I couldn’t help but notice…although the rain had filled the sky

the needles she chose to hide under protected this butterfly.

She looked at me and smiled…the from the lips of the smartest butterfly I’ve ever met…

She said, “I notice how I’m up here high and dry…while you’re down there getting wet.”

I admit I felt a little embarrassed…when with laughter she couldn’t contain…

that little butterfly stopped to ask me…”Where do I go in the rain?”

Then she said, “It doesn’t matter…you are soaking wet I see…

and since it’s still raining why don’t you come and share this tree with me.”

So there I sat under the blue spruce tree…conversing with a butterfly

while the rain fell all around me…and only one of us was dry.

The adult in me would not have wanted to get wet…

would not have followed that butterfly into that blue spruce tree…

but this soaking wet child couldn’t help but think 

there is no place I’d rather be..

May we be blessed to learn from the butterflies…

Who understand in the short time their life is spinning

how the end of every change they make

leads to a new beginning

On a walk the other day…as a flower garden I happened by

I stopped to watch…then have a conversation with a pretty butterfly.

“Do you ever worry, as I do?” I asked that pretty butterfly,

“about the world we are creating?”

“I haven’t got the time to worry.” She smiled as she flitted from flower to flower 

“I’m much too busy pollinating.”

“Do you ever worry about your size…about how small and insignificant you are?

“Never!” She smiled, “because in the insect world I’m known as a star.”

“Yes, much like you I started out small but once my metamorphosis was done…

I came out feeling great

because I know I’ve been given a gift…and my gift is to pollinate.”

“You are so beautiful and graceful.” I said, “in every thing you do.”

“Do you ever worry that other butterflies are more graceful or more beautiful than you?”

“All butterflies are beautiful and graceful.” She said.

“All butterflies are my sisters and my brothers.”

“And it doesn’t matter if one of us is more beautiful 

or more graceful than the other.”

“Our time on Earth is fleeting…we have an extremely short life-span

while we’re here we’re much too busy sharing our gift with as many flowers as we can.”

“So you don’t worry about anything?” I asked. 

Immediately a smile lit up her face.

“I do not.” She answered. 

“I’m much too busy trying to make my world a better place.”

“It was nice talking with you.” She said. “But I have to go now

because in the short time I have…in the world I’m helping to create…

I have a lot more gardens to visit…a lot more flowers to pollinate.”

As I watched her flutter off to another garden…watched her float across the sky

I wondered what our world would be like if we were more like that butterfly.

More interested in sharing with others…in giving unconditionally….

and it made me wonder who was more blessed in life…

that butterfly…or me.