Like milkweed

Like Milkweed

Milkweed makes seeds that go all over the place

It releases them on gossamer

The wind carries them far from the mother plant

The mother plant is okay with

not knowing where the children have gone, that they don’t return for thanksgiving

Are there messages carried by Monarchs

about this or that seed that sprouted

made fragrant flowers that made necter

that the Monarch sipped

before it headed over to the spot where the mother plant grew

last season

there is a new plant in that location come spring

runners were sent out, roots established last year grow again


I looked into a monarch’s eye once

What I saw there held no recognition for me

that being was not interested in me

only flying

flying to the south

to spend the winter

on a tree with other butterflies

staying warm until the next year

and fly north to lay eggs on milkweed


I am inferring all of this flying thinking

projecting it

For what I saw in those eyes suprised me

for there was no understanding there

not like looking into another human’s eyes

and know that here is a being I can talk to

communicate with


The butterfly

or the seed

of the milkweed, what is the communication

The milkweed’s perfume that wafts my way in summer is not for me

Though I fancy myself steward of my domain

I let the milkweed grow or not

see the butterflies come or not

as I will

if I let milweed grow, butterflies will come

if not, they will go elsewhere

or die


Life is not hard for them

in any existential way that I can discern

and yet we call milkweed plants weeds

tear them out so the grass can grow

or the wheat in a field can grow

I understand the wheat, the need to feed our kind

but not the grass part




If we live in a city

and don’t mow

city government employees will mow

charge us for their trouble

and the emplyees don’t care long as they get paychecks

and the boss at city hall doesn’t care,

it is in the statute


And so we are imprisoned by our words

or the words of those who came before us

not so the butterfly

who doesn’t follow our news

has it’s own troubles

and concerns


who flies 2000 miles in a season

on papery wings

that seem to flutter

I’m guessing that butterfly glides more on drafts
on winds, existing flyway highways

chooses right updraft and off it goes

using the wind to find its destination


So long earth

like the butterfly, our kind will learn to live

on the updrafts

Learn to find posibilities of movement

evolve to use the power of

earthly forces


We do not yet know what these forces are

nor perhaps where they will take us

But we are learning to jump when the time is right

off we go, then.

One step closer to understanding

what is there in the eye of a butterfly.