Summer moon connection

(a little prose tale)

“It’s no use, I’m finished,
my muse has burnt out, gone,
there will be no more words.
I am alas, bereft in a void
of brevity.”,
said the moth to the butterfly.

“Oh, so you’re not coming out
tonight then?”

The butterfly looked at the moth
intently, then upwards.

“No, and don’t try to cheer me
with lunar night magic
or tell me that there’s always time
tomorrow.”, continued the moth.

“Mothy, you big fool!”,

said the fiery, orange butterfly,
she had a surprisingly deep voice
for one of her fragile kind,
and it shook Mothy
like tales of the summer moon.

“You always get melancholy
remembering your Cocoon-day,
man, you have at least

ten days

to live. C’mon, give it a break,
that is as we both know
a veritable lifetime.”

With that the butterfly
flew off, a smile looking back,
with wings, vivid as a lake sunrise
and the moth imagined a poem
about a butterfly
as bright, as cool
as an energy saving light bulb
(if that were possible)

Upon a favoured rhubarb leaf
some three days later,
he carefully wrote it down
intending to show her,
but by then it was too late,
as the butterfly had passed away
that very summer morning.

Even the moon was obscured
that uneasy night, missing
part of its symmetrical shape,
one other crescent half,
then two winged clouds parted
and it unveiled to what he thought
was never seen, not possible,
an orb so fine, so orange,
it might have been electric.

Oh Butterfly, he thought,
you did see my poem.

Underground teachings

Open spaces swell the abandoned park
to beginnings to alter Darwin’s theory,
the ground inclines to be a writer
without any footfall subjects.

A muse evolves from foliage
behind wrought gates worn quiet,
more than just the species it supports.

Night to develop till morning hours will draw
lawns to untenable beard heights,
folios in the trees collect notes of the wild,
next brush could be a gardener’s cull.

Overgrown ideas bowl along the green,
clamber literate from Russian ivy.
Trail Tsar knots as tight as former fine minds
that composed before decomposure gained,
filling the walls with coiled free verse.

Paper buds with experience and meaning,
and great philosophers grown to white roses,
in contemplation of misunderstandings,
drop petal lines into an untitled, unreadable
summer ending.

As beautiful as ever

James Taylor sang of fire and rain,
he didn’t know who to send his verse to,
but I send it to you, between strands
of seeing your hair let fully down,
just the one time.

Of sunny days long gone,
remembrance is a summer’s play,
where he who should not be named
for fear of a run of poor fortune,
couldn’t speak of his own heart either.

And I hope you feel fire’s passion
much more than life’s seasonal rain,
for the first time I saw you,
summer was a cold rain spell
in comparison, and Macbeth
who I’ll name too late, a fringe character.

If this poem means little to you,
then understand in Shakespeare’s phrases,
you left a lasting impression
in your embrace, and that’s gold enough.

I always thought I’d see you
one more time again, and let you know
you were much loved.