We fly
on silken wings
that flutter in the breeze.
Our colors flash with each upswing.
Bright as
any flowers
on which we may alight,
while we hasten through your lovely
gardens.
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Author Notes
This butterfly landed on a sidewalk near me, as I was out on a stroll. I waited until it opened it wings wide, then captured this photo. I was delighted by its black wings outlined in white broken lines. The white spots and orange/red accents were spectacular.
This one is a Red Admiral (Vanessa atlanta). It was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae. The Red Admiral is widely distributed across temperate regions of North Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. Red Admirals are territorial; females will only mate with males that hold territory. Territories are subject to intrusion by other males. Territories tend to be oval, 24 feet long and 42 feet wide. Males patrol their territory by flying around the perimeter between 7 and 30 times per hour. On average, territory holders interact with intruders 10 to 15 times per hour. When another male encroaches on a Red Admiral's territory, the resident chases away the intruder, often in a vertical, helical path to disorient or tire out the intruder while minimizing the horizontal distance it travels from its perch. The Red Admiral immediately returns to its territory after chasing off encroaching males. It is known as an unusually people-friendly butterfly, often landing on and using humans as perches. Source: Wikipedia.
So, if you are sitting outside, and one befriends you as a perch, you can spend a pleasant afternoon watching its patrolling antics first hand.
This poem is a Butterfly Cinquain.
The Butterfly Cinquain it a syllabic format that takes two 5 line Cinquains, with a syllable count of 2,4,6,8,2, and joins them together, by linking the last to syllables of the first to the first two of the second Cinquain, to form a single 9 line poem (because they both share 1 link) that makes a butterfly pattern. A lovely result. It need not rhyme, but I chose to add some rhyme here.
This photograph was taken by the author himself on May 23, 2017.
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