Butterfly Dance

Red Tulips

—Poems and Original Artwork by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

A MONARCH BUTTERFLY FLUTTERING DOWN
THE LOW AFTERNOON


A Monarch Butterfly—fluttering down
the low afternoon
in a startle of orange confusion.


Child—
do not touch that soft and tremulous life
at the edge of your reach—


It goes from here to everywhere it has left.
It goes in a
fragile flight from here to extinction.


Touch the air where it was, feel how soft and empty—how it makes
your eyes wonder what is gone.


Child,
that was a
Monarch Butterfly.


Did it delight you?
Did it touch your life
With its own . . . Brief . . .Bright?

_________________
 

RISKING A MORNING WALK

Attacked
by an orange
butterfly, I waver
past—avoiding the shadow of
the crow.

~

The crow—
cawing rudely
at my intrusion on
his path—scolds me so loudly that
I duck.

~

A dog,
sharing the same
sidewalk, sniffs his way past,
taking his rights for granted—same
as me.
 

 Where in the World

THE KING’S BUTTERFLY

For hours, from his drear window, the old king stands
and watches the beautiful butterfly dance in his garden.
The spectacular color and movement so delights the king
that he gives the garden to the butterfly, promising that—
by his decree—no one will ever harm it. In return, the
butterfly continues its bright flitting amid the flowers.

___________________

The mark on the soul

is butterfly wing
is breath
is no-thing
of every-thing
is what and where
and why—
never lose,  
never
forfeit,
never damage,
this want
is/isn’t
the most cherished
part of us    
this
mysterious being
in such a guise
 

 Waiting for Butterflies

ROAD SHADOWS, SHE FOLLOWS WITH HER EYES

She is in the margin of the light
slanting across the road that invites.
She considers the urge to follow—

the overlapping trees
with their leaves still clinging—
the panoramic window behind her.

Dappled ground-shadows flicker
into the road’s far turning.
She feels the winter’s edge,

the light closing. 
A brown fox-shadow crosses the road
into the closing trees.

She tries to see where it goes.
She turns her head.
A brown butterfly lights in her hair.

She can barely feel it. 
A voice calls to her—  
calls to her—the long ago voice.

The winds open up.
She hears an owl.
The afternoon turns a tremble deeper.
 

 Blue Pathetique

TURNING

Realized, idealized,
container of all,
she closes her eyes,
floats in her mind,
hides her arms in
sleeves lest they
hold even more—
now she is levitated,
she is cocoon,

       wrapped and wrapped
       with all that involves her, voices get through, love
       gets through, need gets through, but she is
       not yet finished—

her bound
wings unwilling
to open, suspension
is her inner quietness,
her deepest solitude—
safe behind her closed eyes.
 

 Blythe Spirit
 

WOMAN CAUGHT IN A BLUE DREAM
(After a photo by Gjon Mili, 1944)                                      

Caught in moonlight’s floating web,
in breeze of silver—shred by shred,

of dream sensation, yielding deep
into the curtain of her sleep,

enveloped by the closing room
wrapped and wrapped in sleep’s cocoon.
 

 Dancer

THE UNCERTAINTY OF THE DREAM

Dream that escapes into oblivion,
downhill into silence.

Slanted handwriting to explain what is there,
what is not.

Hanging, fragile, painted things—
images of what you imagine:

gaiety in the Death Carnival.
Beckoned, you follow.

Innocence. Blame.
In the mirrors of one another.

In and out of flowing breezes.
Like paper. Like chiffon.

Trials of energy that fail.
Wave after wave of time, escaping.

Curtains. Many curtains. Butterfly dance
of pleasure. And then the waking:

the falling upward, climbing through—
through closed eyes, the mind surrendering.

_________________

Today’s LittleNip:

FOR BROKEN THINGS
—Joyce Odam

Something as joyful as
a sheer-winged dragonfly,
a butterfly, a moth—
a hummingbird in flight . . .

all these can still the heart.
All these can still the heart

which grieves the smallest loss:
the damage that befalls,
the happenstance of death—
all life too swift for love.


(first pub. in Poetry Forum Magazine)

______________________

Many, many thanks to Joyce Odam for her fine butterfly poetry and artwork as we wing our way into the holiday season!  Our new Seed of the Week is Christmas Bells. Send your poems, photos & artwork about this (or any other) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though, and for a peek at our past ones, click on “Calliope’s Closet”, the link at the top of this column, for plenty of others to choose from.

—Medusa
 

 (Celebrate poetry!)

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.