THE BUTTERFLY'S DAY.

FROM cocoon forth a butterfly

     As lady from her door

Emerged ~ a summer afternoon ~

Repairing everywhere,

Without design, that I could trace,

Except to stray abroad

On miscellaneous enterprise

Photo: lbw

The clovers understood.

Her pretty parasol was seen

Contracting in a field

Where men made hay, then struggling hard

With an opposing cloud,

Where parties, phantom as herself,

To Nowhere seemed to go

In purposeless circumference,

As 't were a tropic show.

And notwithstanding bee that worked,

And flower that zealous blew,

This audience of idleness

Disdained them, from the sky,

Till sundown crept, a steady tide,

And men that made the hay,

And afternoon, and butterfly,

Extinguished in its sea.

~ Emily Dickinson, Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, Chatham River Press, 1986.

REMINDER FRIENDS:  August Third Thursday, 15th at 1:00 p.m., Poems & Poets, a round-table sharing favourite poems.  Everyone welcome.  Every third Thursday of the month an informal reading of poetry or prose ~ or sometimes a Fascinating Personality of literature or other.