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Butterfly Summer


01.23.20 Posted in today's words by

Nancy Scott McBride’s most recent poem to appear here was “Full Moon” (December 2019)

Butterfly Summer
By Nancy Scott McBride

We’d been told that their numbers were down.
Way down.
We’d heard that they were in trouble.
Big trouble.
And we saw that it was true,
what the experts said.
For many years in a row,
we hardly saw any.
“Passing beauty” I called them,
remembering that, at one time,
there were more of them than blooms
on the Butterfly Bush.
But then this year, here they were,
back again in great numbers!
Orange ones, yellow ones, black ones—
I don’t know their names, only their colors.
And they’re all over the garden, on the roses,
lavender, zinnias, marigolds and nasturtiums.
Oh, there’s probably some scientific reason for this:
Fewer pollutants in the air? Warmer temperatures?
I’m sure you can read about it somewhere.
But for me, this year of 2019, was the one when
the butterflies came back to remind us that
something so fragile, so delicate, so beautiful
can still exist in a country that has become so
ugly, hateful, and vicious.



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