IN A GILDED INSTANT

IN A GILDED INSTANT The monarch’s wings opened as a picture book, fluttering by. It glided, uncertain but undeterred, through a gentle haze of gold and shadow, the garden’s hush punctuated by the faint murmur of leaves. Sunlight filtered in rare skeins, dappling the monarch’s patterned wings as it hovered, hesitated, and then pressed onward—a flicker stitched between petal and air. The world, for one gilded instant, seemed spun from elegant silk. Painted in oranges, kissed with black lace, the monarch glides through the air and pirouettes in a ballet of grace. Oh, to witness her beauty, a fleeting affair a living poem, a jeweled muse~ a moment suspended in delicate air. (Poem written for USPS Stamp Poetry Contest, Robert James Liguori, sponsor)