Memories of Butterflies

Pomegranates, peacocks, eggs, or dolphins,
but what my fingers knew were butterflies.
Each Easter I fold sets of paper wings

for the kids, but this time, driving thru Spring
in rain and sun, across hundreds of miles,
folding wings from the loveliest papers,

folding a rainbow of wings to cascade
across the walls of her hospital room —
Resurrexit, sicut, dixit. Oh, yes.

Triduum

i. Black and White


Image by Gail Ray

Before the sorrow, before the thorn,
looking away into what lies inside
the senses, memories as yet unborn.
Do you remember? Reality sliced
into ribbons, tongues of flame. Roses worn
where wounds will root. Peering thru many-eyed,
caught in hatched pencil lines. Before the thorns,
before the sorrows, the closed mouth unshorn.

ii. Light and Dark


Image by Gail Ray

When light enters the eye does it grow dark?
Do other waves weep as it slips in the grave?
Or do they shiver loose fragmented arcs
(wild rose petals clustered around a cave,
droplets of sound more liquid than the lark,
cascade unheard more sweetly than if saved)?
When light enters the eye does it transform,
tracing the shivering nerves until warm?

iii. Closed and Open


Image by Gail Ray

There is a tenderness in the morning,
when eyes grown used to dark open to light.
It is as if light bruises, gives warning,
confuses. It is as if light invites
the night, all things closed, all hearts in mourning
to open. Things that are dark may grow bright.
Things that are open, close. This is the night
full of gladness, dazzling, gentle with sight.