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Bob Beagrie

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Butterfly Babe

(for Robyn)

In a trance between feeds
       she leads
             me back with mist-bound eyes
through turned trees and sodden leaves
flattened like starfish on the pavements.

Avoiding the cracks
       we tread
             a tight rope of lifetimes, fading in
and out of a cavernous awareness, velvetine
darkness, soft warmth and vernex,

to the inner edge
       of elsewhere.
             Past mountain gorges where
rowans climb sheer faces, rooting at the tails
of mackerel skies.

And butterflies
       from places
             on the far side of babyhood,
beat subtle energies with an enlightened smile
that could melt an ice cap......cause chaos,

…submerge Florida, the Netherlands,
       Bangladesh
             over night if they weren’t
transfixed by the light bulb’s promise
of nectar electrica.

On the return she begins
       to cry,
             frustrated by
the limitations of our flesh meat forms,
grounded on the path to crawl, and walk

and slowly outgrow
       the sublime hydraulics
of insect flight.

 

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