Queen Alexandra
a post from 2014
for my beautiful granddaughter, Alexandra
After 13 days of confinement,
a caterpillar broke out of her butterfly egg,
Then ate the shell and pipevine leaf,
upon which it was laid,
A small fuzzy caterpillar,
with red spikes sticking out her sides and top,
She noticed on her middle,
a bright yellow colored spot-
Pipevine plants are toxic,
to things that are alive,
But for Queen Alexandra,
they would help her to survive,
These leaves would be her food source –
a repellent to her foes,
And if a predator caught her,
they’d vomit up and go-
Queen Alexandra wondered,
where on earth she might be,
Glancing at a tree canopy,
1,300 feet above the sea,
She noticed the thick greenery,
covering all the ground below,
And knew that only in a rainforest,
could this kind of vegetation grow-
Queen Alexandra didn’t know the name,
Papua New Guinea,
The tropical rainforest home,
to the largest butterflies that be,
Loggers destroying habitat,
collectors catching this species fast,
Predictions for her family –
only until the year 2021 to last-
Queen Alexandra as a caterpillar,
ate and grew for 120 days,
Shedding her skin six times was work,
not any fun or play,
Then she tightly clung
to the underside of a pipevine leaf,
And changed into a pupa,
the outside hardening as a protective sheath-
Inside changing her looks,
” metamorphosis” in her safe cocoon,
Forty days later emerging as a butterfly,
in hours long before noon,
Her 12 inch wings were mostly brown,
with pale yellow hues,
Her brother’s wings were smaller,
with streaks of iridescent blue-
So flying up they joined a group –
Queen Alexandra and her brother,
A gathering of butterflies together, you see,
is referred to as a “flutter,”
For about three months they’d fly,
at the top of the tree canopy,
This endangered “Queen Alexandra” Butterfly,
a beautiful rarity to see!
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