Fog and a fine drizzle. A monarch butterfly, oranger than any leaf in view, glides past in the wrong direction. The cheep cheep of a peeper.
monarch butterfly
The smell of wood smoke; I think of the fires in California. A dead limb at the woods’ edge crashes to the ground. A monarch’s small flame.
A monarch butterfly en route to Mexico glides over the house, past the orange leaves on the last living branch of a hollow maple.
Even unseen, the raven crying rawk rawk from high overhead makes the flat white sky more interesting. In the yard, a monarch’s regal orange.
A certain lightness to the air despite the steady rain. A monarch flutters into the lilac and finds a spot to dangle like a dead leaf.
Still cool so far, but the air smells of heat. A monarch butterfly circles the house on its way to Mexico.
Hoarse cries of a lone Canada goose—I scan the sky and see nothing but blue. A monarch butterfly arcs through the shadows in the yard.
How to describe a monarch butterfly’s flight? Too straight for “flutter,” too erratic for “soar.” And this one—why is it heading north?
First rays of sun on the garden, and already a monarch is drinking from the half-opened asters, orange panes of its wings trembling, aglow.
Where daffodils bloomed in April, goldenrod sways—a more worldly yellow. The distant hurricane makes a roosting monarch flap its wings.