the vissitudes of a blue butterfly by Colleen Keating

 

the vicissitudes of a blue butterfly  

she lavishly opens her wings
teal-blue fans quiver  
playing warm still airmotley light from the trees

she darts and dives
ah with what precision
dodges the many hazards
with angular flight

creole-eyed she alights to sip
from sweet honey-dewed
red-dressed grevilleas
moves with notes of music<
up and down around and in me

with lightness and freedom
I know dull blue of wings
etherised
silver-pinned under glass

and think of shy miss butterfly
sprawled in Eliot’s poem
pinned and wriggling on the wall

today her iridescent triangles of blue
flash with the sun like flying jewels
intoxicated with life

Colleen Keating

the web

waiting_spider_web

This is the second section of my poetry book A Call to Listen that you will get to enjoy, one poem a day to think about. It has 13 poems in this section about life and the moments and memories that are part of that. Enjoy.
This first poem actually called the web which the section is named from, was about one day I was sitting in the garden admiring a butterfly enjoying the beauty of a white azalea and the blue flowers of the plumbago. She flitted about amongst the flowers as if all her christmases had come at once.

Meanwhile I was also admiring the yellow black striped spider . . .her web across the shrubs. I had earlier admired the beauty of the web with the jewelled dew sparkling in the early sun. It was dry now, but I could still see the web. When the encounter happened I jumped up in response and cried out ‘no’ but the whole thing was almost instantaneous.

spider web
” . .it spins out
jewelled glistening dew . . ”

the web

curves and lines orbit
between the slate blue plumbago and the white azalea
illusive in the stare of the day it spins out
jewelled glistening dew
long dried as noon had come

a butterfly in flights of fantasy
each interlude on its terms
flits and flirts with a shimmer and quest
communing with the nectar of life

its next encounter a delicious tangled seduction
contortionist struggle into the stillness of surrender
the yellow-ribboned spider winding with nimble fingers
caressing touch a consummation