1
What is it to be a king,
To rule but an instant,
Driven by one grand design—
A never ceasing royal line
Of two, three, four generations
Spent spring into summer,
Brilliant solar flares
Fluttering five weeks
Towards inglorious death
Except for the season’s final heirs—
Migrants beating to Mexico,
Pausing only to humor
The fickle whims of high winds
By dropping low to tree-roost.
Like tiger-stripe curtains, they hang,
Smothering trunks and branches—
A huddled mass warming
Until they catch easy rides
On upward rising air
Or fly into the sun, basking
Beyond binocular view.
2
The cool, high mountains
Of central Mexico play host
To these savviest of tourists
That overwinter, mapless.
I, the prisoner of a GPS,
Wonder at the perfection
Of their 2,500-mile journey
To my southern backyard,
To pair off in early spring,
The season of love—so I hear.
Like tiny periods, eggs
Punctuate the underside
Of milkweed leaves;
Then hatched caterpillars gnaw
Delicious toxins in greedy growth—
Skin-shedding five times over
Until crawling off to shelter
Their rippled bodies
In quick-hardening cases of
Yellow-speckled jade.
3
In the fall of my thirteenth year,
A science teacher dispatched me
On a hunting trip to fill
A board with insect quarry.
For two weeks, I waited out
A chrysalis—finally spying
Orange-and-black wings
Behind a thin, transparent wall.
It cracked.
That hapless creature,
With tiny wings, crumpled and wet,
Clung to the shell of its broken home;
I hovered one hour, staring,
With a quick lid and a Mason jar
Fuming with a splash
Of rubbing alcohol.
The monarch’s wings dried, spreading,
And I scooped it to sudden murder
Within four desperate wing flaps.
I pinned my prize trophy
On the back of a cardboard box
Bumpily covered with burlap.
My teacher praised the centerpiece
Of that fine collection, and I wept.
Photo credit: Monarch butterflies clinging to branches by Kamchatka
Photo challenge: Earth (butterfly after emergence from chrysalis)
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