Butterfly Autumn

The call of the cicada came early this year,

And the leaves are already falling like golden rain.

My butterflies are restless,

And are demanding release…

Even in the rain.

Where did my month go?

The weather’s parading its declaration

Like a herald with a bell

Proclaiming, “It’s September! September!”

Pardon me while I (mmph!) tie your tabard in a (mmph!) knot,

And proceed to the preceding month.

You skipped a bit, brother.

We need this month, the peridot one,

The Leo bows to Virgo month,

Where clusters of butterfies are released each morning

Like reverse glowing aurantiacine leaves.

My skeletons aren’t in the closet,

They’re shivering in the caterpillar habitat.

The stalk we put in this morning?

It’s a nubbin tonight.

Don’t worry, they got more,

Two gloriously fresh milkweed stalks

That will be skeletonized by morning.

I saw eight caterpillars eyeing their prey hungrily,

And that excludes the three on the ceiling

Finding the perfect spot

To chrysalize.

Two weeks to spend

As a bag of goo,

But one that remembers.

My flutters remember me.

The caterpillars are “mine,”

Descendants of the kaleidoscope I raised last year,

And the year before, and the year before that.

Memory encased in unfathomable ways

In nucleotides and DNA strands,

In ways mysterious and cryptic.

They recognize us,

Somehow.

They know they’re as safe as we can make it for them.

The adults don’t fuss much when we move them

To new habitats overnight, for morning’s release.

Some even say goodbye

By bouncing off our cheeks as they go,

Ephemeral butterfly kisses

Before a long flight.

Rest well, my proto-flutters and flutters,

Whether it’s sleeping on a skeletonized leaf,

Or in a chrysalis hanging from the ceiling,

Or protected by a habitat before launching for the skies.

The journey is long,

2,508 miles till the Oyamel fir trees

Will welcome you for another sleep.

The trip of a lifetime

Starts in August,

And if I’m lucky,

I’ll see your grandchildren

In June.