Thursday, April 8, 2010

Marmalade Flies

Slate blue clean and cloudless skies
leafy shadows flickering sunshine
here and there grass lapping at my toes
A caterpillar inches over my knee
going far out of its way to pay visit.
I crane my neck upward, to the white hot
spot in the sky, drying out the sweat on my brow.
My hair is picked up by a finger breeze
and placed on my other cheek, gently.

I look out over the waving field
of grass being swept up with the winds.
I feel my shirt sleeve pinch
and what do you know
a butter fly made perch of my arm
It stretched its yellow wings,
open close
open close
Looked up at me
unfurled its proboscis
And kissed me
to thank me for lending it my shoulder.
In two flaps it was airborne
that yellow flutter by
that marmalade fly.
I watched it glide off
floating like a bubble in the open
yellow blue air that was so active that day.

My hair tossed about my head
as if I were in a warm tidal pool
shrunk to the size of a sea shell
floating helplessly in the living
earth around me
wet with beauty, dripping with happiness.
As I sunk to the bottom of this arid grotto,
my clothes became as alive as the rest of Earth.
Tens of butterflies matching my companion
came tumbling along in the gripping wind.
Then hundreds of orange and yellow buddies
filled the air with the perfection of life.
I lost count when they started chopping
up sun light like the waving tree branch above me.


I looked around me and it wasn't the breeze
shuffling about my clothes and hair
but the hundreds of feelers these bugs had.
I was covered in their tickling feet,
each grabbing for me as respite.
They looked just like my first friend,
the first butterfly, my marmalade fly,
yet I still missed him.

The storm of butterflies
carried on over head, filling the air with
golden streams of fall leaves
migrating for the spring.
I watched the field turn back to normal
with the last few
flitting into the distance, seeking their new home.
The air was once again empty,
the sun leaning its heavy head ever so slightly
looking at me all alone in his empty field,
he smiled and winked, I could have sworn,
just as something pinched the sleeve of my shirt.
I looked over and met a matching butterfly
staring up to me.
I knew it wasn't my friend from before
but it was just as yellow, and just as good.

We flocked into the future together
fluttering in the wind, as helpless as the rest.

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