Dialogue with the Butterfly

The Lighter Side of Human Nature

 Dialogue with the Butterfly

"I cannot reach for the rainbow,

neither can I make one,

but you, by your wings and wand,

build the biggest crown."

Dr Abe V Rotor

Exquisite netted venation of a butterfly wing, representing nature's architecture universal in the insect world, flying foxes, leaves of most plants, and blood vessels in human and other creatures.

Author's daughter, Anna, is amused by friendly butterflies at a botanical garden in Bangkok, Thailand.

Life cycle of the butterfly - from egg to caterpillar to pupa to adult - the butterfly.

Fly me to your world, oh butterfly,

where flows the Pierian Spring*,

the fountain of youth eternal,

where Syrphids dance and sing.

I'd rather wish to be in your garden

foe and friend yet we're one,

where the tree of knowledge blooms,

nurtured by rain and sun.

I cannot reach for the rainbow,

neither can I make one,

but you, by your wings and wand,

build the biggest crown.

Your sense of beauty’s not ours,

fleeting and elusive,

ephemeral to your senses all,

before it is perceived.

Just for once, oh butterfly, to leave

the home of my ancestor,

I shall cease to ask another favor

nor crave for more.

Then I shall fly no more in your garden;

the flowers will die with the fountain,

and all that lives shall crave the same

with nothing to hope and gain. ~

*In Greek mythology, the Pierian Spring of Macedonia was sacred to the Muses. As the metaphorical source of knowledge of art and science, it was popularized by a couplet in Alexander Pope's 1711 poem "An Essay on Criticism": "A little learning is a dang'rous thing; / Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring." Wikipedia