SAYING GOODBYE TO BUTTERFLIES

When I was a child,
I loved everything about butterflies,
their magical wings, their lustrous colors,
but never pondered their life cycle,
or where they went each fall,

like a game of peekaboo,
they were here one minute,
gone the next,

my young mind easily moved on
to the next wondrous thing,
a chittering squirrel,
a leaping grasshopper,
a hopping bunny,
a vine bursting with pumpkins
just in time for Halloween,

it wasn’t until I was older
that saying goodbye to butterflies
was accompanied by feelings of melancholy,

I worried about their arduous flight to Mexico;
whether or not their delicate wings would sustain them,

you see, I had lived long enough by then
to understand that not all stories have a happy ending,
and that sometimes saying goodbye
could be for the very last time.

Photo by Marti Durkee Garvey (my very talented sister-in-law)
See more of her art on Instagram: @momartiphotos
and on Tumbler: momartiphotos.tumblr.com