Butterflies Sing with the Tongues of Zen and Angels
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
Let’s say that butterflies could sing. What songs
Would come from them? Perhaps their first
Would be selected from the secret throngs
Of dreams they underwent before they burst
From their cocoons. Their arias might swing
From passion for the flowers they sip from when
They flit from nectar of the bloom on wing,
Then breeze to other nectars yet again.
Perhaps their lyrics would be hummingbirds’
Refrains repeated, songs the butterflies
Have heard and then launched like the mockingbirds
Embellishing the airs of summer skies.
..The butterflies would never sing a dirge
….Of beaks that kill them on the garden verge.
~ Phillip Whidden
