Time and Butterflies
There is something about the desert—I’m not sure what—that produces a different sense of the passing of time, at least for me. It’s a strange timelessness which I used to think grew from having only two seasons instead of four.
But here we have something much more like four seasons, and yet the intense sunlight, the dry air, the raw soil, combine to create that same feeling. A sort of stopping of the clock. A recognition that there is nothing to mark time besides the flicker of lives across something more or less eternal.
I can’t explain my feelings for the simple reason that I don’t understand why I would feel this way at all. But in the following sonnet I’ve attempted to give them expression.
Green leaves stand still against the blue of sky
Where sun is bright this morning, and I see
A blur of brown that is a butterfly,
A flick of gold that is a tiny bee.
The thorn-sharp branches trace a filagree;
Green leaves arc up against the carven blue
As though the moment were eternity
Through which the small things flutter, ever through
Where sun and time together still endue
Their wings with life and movement, warmth and air
That beats within the heart of morning--new
As daybreak borne upon the small wings there.
See, sun and time look through the ageless skies;
Our moments pass on wings of butterflies.
Night has its own timelessness.
Lamplight glows along
the house wall. In its halo
a moth is dancing.
I expected to add another poem here, but I’m not satisfied with it yet, so it will have to wait!
Meantime, don’t forget to check my just-published volume of poetry!