The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Roger Fogelman

BUTTERFLY MESSIAH

Fluttering in from the horizon,
Wing on wing, from the Spring of time,
They come, a gossamer horde
Semaphoring in the endless day,
They meet, mate, and provide
Provender for their young,
And then they die.

But now from this
Another wave is generated to move on.
What then? Well, they believe
That crumpling one brood on another brood,
An infinity of butterflies will coax
An archibutterfly to come,
And lead them from a world of birds and wasps,
And other accomplices of woe
To where the whole taxonomy will bask,
Subjected to eternal shine,
And all the vacuum of the past,
The hurried haste, the glut of spawn
Is justified.

So what are we to say?
Well, birds and butterflies and men
Form an economy of souls
At whom we laugh at our own peril;
And the winged hieroglyphs
Provide a puzzle which
Our whole life is too short to puzzle on.

So here we end, all tantalized
At the solution of the butterflies.



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