Butterfly life

The brief life is a miracle of timing;
the perilous migration of the female
to the weed or tree, the foliage
that serves as nurse
and camouflaging nursery,
where caterpillars hatch
into a predatory world,
to take their chances against birds
and seasonal inclemency.

The caterpillars make their preparations
for the inward journey,
when they will seclude themselves
in veils of opalescent cells,
their helix-trick, allowing light
to permeate the chrysalis,
performing alchemies as sun
infuses plants with chlorophyll.

Within, the nymphs morph into wings
whose stained-glass colours dimly gleam,
opaquely furled in film that breathes,
like sublimated gems in dreams.

Instinctively the morphing being
is travelling towards its tree,
where flowers in their buds
are dreaming of encounters soon to be,
and when they meet,
the colours sing and flicker
in the clear spring light,
wings more delicate than kites
soar skyward, linked by unseen strings
to wistful petals, flower-lives
that synchronise their span with flight.