THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN

  

I dug a recess in the Earth,

Just big enough to bury there

A bucketful of stony dirt,

And poured in it some fusty beer.

 

I planted phlox and zinnia,

Some goldenrod and lavender;

Hibiscus, pink azalea,

Lilac and purple coneflower.

 

The butterflies came winging it,

And gathered in a puddle club

Upon the beer-soaked bucket’s brim,

Fluttering to sip the flood.

 

My garden was a sunny spot,

Where I could watch from house or yard

Without disturbing my mascots,

Whose vision of me was so blurred

 

Due to their nearsightedness,

That I appeared to them to be

Amorphous as the cumulus

That soared above so weightlessly.

 

These connoisseurs of flowers danced

Like fairies when I closed my eyes.

The Sun was focused in his trance

Upon my host of butterflies,

 

Of which the Monarch, poison-jawed

From sucking at the milkweed’s mead,

Curled up his tiny, tubelike straw

And dared the crows on him to feed!

 

A Butterfly was I that day,

And dreamed that I became Chuang Tzu--

And kept my predators away

By waving my Owl-Eye tattoos.