Tortoiseshell Butterfly Poems | Examples

I Saw You

I saw you
In the tender birth of a summer’s day
Emerge,
Fragile to a new life,
New freedom,
Feast delights of nectar
On the brambled cliffs.

I saw your fluttered dance of courtship
In the gladed woods
Above the Lyn.
Those crowded flights
Of summer’s quiet agitation
Fade one by one
To loneliness.

I saw those wings
That floated in the easy lightness of an August heat
Falter,
Chill-damped
In a late September mist
Above the bouldered shore.

I saw you
Weary of life once precious,
Hesitate along the edge of the western bay,
Your wings dip to the water’s gentle swell.
You rested brief
As though to rise again,
Gave in to weakness frail,
Surrendered to the ancient sea’s embracing wave,
Pale essence of those cycled ways,
I saw you die.


On holiday in North Devon, watching a tortoiseshell butterfly at Bucks’ Mill as it fluttered along the gentle shore.