This poem revolves around three actual events: a couple of months ago I was lying under a rose scented geranium when what looked like a caterpillar dropped into my hair (though inside in winter, which means it couldn’t have been an actual caterpillar and I still don’t know what it was, rather than outside in summer), while I was sitting at my mother’s bedside as she was dying I heard the melody from Madama Butterfly and felt deeply comforted, and, finally, a friend told me the story of how she was watching a monarch butterfly fly for the first time and, just as it lifted off, a flock of monarchs arrived and they all flew off together. When I put the three events together, the message of this poem appeared.
In a bold moment, risking oblivion for being’s adventure,
The milky caterpillar unfurled her grasp on the leaf,
Her emerald rose geranium nursery, and flung herself
Like a trapeze artist, into the swirling maelstrom of my hair,
My Medusa’s snake strands winding and waving even at rest to catch her
As I lay on the cool, verdant Earth watching the roiling clouds.
I had called the butterflies, the dragonflies and damselflies, the bees
To my garden, enticing with fragrant, nutritious milkweed, motherwort, Jerusalem artichoke.
The mother butterfly answered with the gift of her larvae before heading home.
I promised her I would lie on the ground, her child in the tangle of my hair,
The place where women’s spiritual power nests.
I promised her I would be still and comforting until the baby’s summer birth,
My hands reaching into the soil and clasping fingers with the mycelium,
Sending out the message that I am here for the duration.
My eyes dim from the sunlight. My water evaporates to the heavens.
To the ancient Greeks, the butterfly is the goddess Psyche, the soul,
Essence of beauty and mother of joy.
To the Nahua people in Mexico, the butterfly is the goddess Itzpapalotl, the soul,
Who wears the symbols of death tattooed on Her face.
Many years ago, as I sat vigil at my mother’s side while she was dying,
I heard the melody from opera Madama Butterfly.
It originated not from this realm,
But from the portal opening for her to pass through,
A leaving from this life that she loved but which was hers no more.
Love is eternal.
From that time, butterflies have symbolized to me grief and loss
Even as I have craved witnessing their wings beating the air,
Circling the garden’s blooms and berries.
For years I have tried in vain to lure butterflies to my garden.
Did they sense my bereavement and feel unwelcome
Until now, right at this very moment?
Outstretched on the embracing wet soil,
The breath of herbs and grass soothing me,
I have finally gained the message that my mother tendered to me
In the melody that had brought to my mind in that sad moment the flight of butterflies.
“Freedom, freedom,” she had coaxed the angels to sing to me,
In words untranslated for me till now.
Like the butterflies breaking out of their cocoons,
“With a mother’s love, with a Goddess’s love, with the Earth’s love,
You are free. We could want no more and no less for you.”
A butterfly rises from my hair, fluttering against my cheek.
For one moment we see each other. She has human eyes,
My mother’s eyes that are also my eyes,
So that my mother lives on in me.
The baby-no-more dries her wings as a flock of sister butterflies surrounds us.
They fly away together and none looks back.
I try to fly with them by willing my feet to rise into the sky
But I am heavy and earthbound.
Now I am fully human, my fingers no longer part of the mycelium,
My eyes no longer dim from the sunlight, my body no longer wet from dew.
I take up my life again, myself but also more,
With dried wings made not of filament, but of flesh and soul.
Hello? Have you come to visit? Please, sit in my garden. We’ll have a cup of tea. We’ll chat. How are you? Did you know that butterflies have just come back to my garden this year? I welcome them when they come and wish them adieu when it is time for them to fly away. What else can I do?
Thank you so much, Glenys! I do think that butterfly came just to be with you as you thought about yourself past and present! And what lovely questions for Lammas. Butterflies are indeed such magical creatures!
Thank you so much, Glenys. It seems like that butterfly showed up in your garden just for you as you thought about yourself then and now! and What beautiful questions for the Lammas ceremony!
A beautiful big butterfly visited me in my garden this morning. I had been thinking recently about myself about 40-50 years ago and now … and I have often spoken the words at Lammas ceremony (which was a week ago here in the Southern Hemisphere): “Can the grub imagine the butterfly she will become? Can we imagine what will emerge?”
Thank you Carolyn – as always – a very moving poem.