Written: March 18, 2025 for contest Sponsored by: Brian Strand
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I swapped worry for a searing abyss
a painter brush colorizes gold fields
converting me into an orange butterfly
with shiny peach strokes, sealing my kismet
my raw life spreads wings
a cool breeze carries me on a winter sleigh
my bones feel cold and long for warmth
I await spring with bated breath.
for honeyed nectar, I dance overhead
my veins carry a sweet elixir
I waltz for my dream woman
seeking her by midsummer rains
my agile limbs flickered and flitted
I view a peony patch visitor
a sexy female fritillary with elegant curves
a challenge awaits, but I'll earn her love
They slip in unnoticed
just below the burning rays of the sun solstice
lighting on the last flowers of summer bare,
sweet nectar wafting in the heavy laden air,
colors brilliant, glowing, coy
orange black monarchs and viceroys,
great spangled fritillary yellows and whites,
tiger swallowtails in yellow black stripes,
California sisters, red admirals, blues, skippers,
silent and stealth like they come on windy clippers
floating and flittering in mid-August dance,
waltzing on the warm light breeze tree branch,
eye-catching, dainty lace winged soarers,
quick and slow in flight flutterers scorers,
enticed by flowered whispers between thorn and nettles
painted ladies hovering in place on petals
mourning cloakers, dark gray stokers with blended color palettes,
rudders navigating windy turns and landings on salads,
southern dogfaces heading south in transition
migratory lives gathering in submission
to climatic phenomena seen on the window pane
tempered by the sun, the surf, and rain
waving goodbye to the northern lights
hello to the southern fields and forests cool nights.
The keepers of the flowers’ secrets arrive in their season
Monarch, viceroy, red-spotted purples, given a good reason.
They bring fantasy and delight to the lilacs and bleeding heart.
Keeping their confidence is what they do so wise and smart.
Faeries and bumblebees try to get in on the confidence action.
But they end up not learning anything to the tulip’s satisfaction.
You see, the zebra swallowtails and orange sulphurs too.
Know how to keep secrets from the likes of them, me and you.
We hide in the meadow, and try to not look interested at all.
In swoops the great spangled fritillary, landing on lilac so tall.
We lean our ears toward the garden, acting nonchalant and lazy.
Fooling not one monarch or zinnia, delighting the lilies and daisy.
gulf fritillary
proboscis search zinnias ....
first frost
One little fritillary
Hiding in the weeds
Shrivels up and fades away
Scattering its seeds.
Adder,badger
barn owl
black hairstreak
silver studded blue
damsel fly
fritillary
sundew-
Marsh helleborine
Duke of Burgundy
goat willow too-
Porcelain fungus
purple emperor
quaking grass
skylark
bush cricket
curlew-
Dowy emerald
bluebell
wild service tree
Gentian
corncockle
widgeon
chalk hill blue
inspired by BBOWT WILD LIFE CHAMPIONS
Hats are such a marvel,
when the weather is so garbled,
A multitude of quick coverlets to warm the brain
protect the head from snow, wind and rain.
A dapper, flamboyant chapeau
to quickly dawn where ever you might go,
A fedora brandished by some handsome man
that would display his appealing stand.
A stetson for the guy from Texas
who stands tall before the rest of us.
A tam, a topper
a Panama show stopper.
Some pretty little girl in a bonnet
that inspires a Shakespearean sonnet.
Better yet, a woman's choice of millinery
to walk a fashion show off fritillary.
To church or same gandiose Easter parade
that gleams and stands above the seasonal charade.
Hats are such a blessing
when the cold requires warm protective dressing.
The prediction is for gusty winds and cold,
hats need only be warm not necessarily bold.
Take your pick
but make it quick
your nose, your face, your head
need covering, that goes unsaid.
as temperatures drop
Fritillary on
buds of my butterfly bush,
soon both will be gone.
~The Comma Butterfly~
I am a comma-not a full stop
I’m tawny brown and black and love on stinging nettles to hop
I love the elm and hop plant for flitting on too
I do all the other things butterflies do
I am not a great beauty like some of the rest
My fritillary wings do work just like the best
I don’t gain the oohs and arhs as I give butterfly kisses on my way
Some here call me a moth-well what can you say.
I flit and I kiss from elm to nettle
I always do my best and show them my mettle
A British butterfly I have beauty in my own way
Look under my wings and I bet you will say
Oh look there’s a comma marked under its wing
I suppose it a butterfly really poor thing
I flash them my markings before flitting on my way
I have so many more kisses to give out today.
By: Mandy Tams~GG~
I flit and flutter
on the wind
blown
as the spirit leads
drawn by colour
and intense needs
my journee
erratically unfolds-
I alight,
spread my wings
in still life
to make
poets sing.
A sixain inspired by a garden view on holdiday recently and by Wordsworth poem 'The
Butterfly
Where diamonds shape a lantern
harlequins are taunted in jest,
which inaugurates the conviction
attracting an upheld stance.
They stare like a drastic mistake;
thinking it was a corn snake.
Warily, from side to side, surprise!
one way or the other fully fixed;
around those surrounding sceneries
hypnotic is the way its eyes transfix.
It nullifies a moment to the ground
container-like as bulbous ends disturb
like a death's-head rattling sound,
by this inconspicuous perrenial herb.
It is limp to the elusive sun approach
dictating to the forty five degree-
holds head as moments waiting there,
gardeners probe this mauve naivety.
It deceives so contrarily it contrives
I guess that's how fritillary survives.
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