Voracious Verses

2010-2011

Carmen Eichman

 

Butterfly

I have to stop

when the butterfly comes

illuminating, bright and fluttering;

cheerful and yellow and orange and blue.

Blue that dyes my vision; blue

my favorite, most rare,

like love.

Brief butterfly visits last barely seconds.

Colors suspended,

 its sojourn in my present briefly levitating me

 

from death.

 

And like love, I try to lure its fragile form,

catch my breath to keep it close,

soft as powder wings,

my own trying to mend behind

silent  butterfly laughter leaving

me luminously alone.

 

Beautiful Living Crypt

Plump Crepe Myrtle blossoms

surround me.  Butterfly bushes regale

guests of many colors, ambassadors dressed

in their finest, a spectacular display.

Cicadas, unpopular to some, but my favorites

as their etchings announce  deep summer’s

sultry seduction.  The Hummingbird

appears, a blink, like good days,

then vanishes into brush shade,

in cool darkness, where I too find refuge.

I think the dragonfly knows

 perched atop the stalk

rising just above

a chain length fence,

its blue lined, transparent wings still, but it sees me,

my dog lumbering, oblivious, like many,

to its presence.  The fragile blue spectator watches carefully,

knows of beauty and danger, as the sun begins its arc

illuminating another day

of beauty and death,

as ancient as the dragonfly’s flight,

but there it sits as I walk past

wishing for tomorrow,

for something new.

 

© Carmen Eichman