Butterflies Pulsing

The sway of the horse rocks me along
while we climb the mountain Pelón.
His hooves on the dusty path
lull away my daily life,
emptying me for the miracle.
We ascend without speech,
bandanas pulled over our noses.
Increasing with the elevation,
our horses’ rhythmic panting
adds a kind of singing.
Parting the air in another way
is the Monarch sailing overhead,
the first of the beings we came to see.

As up, up the mountain we climb,
twisting and turning on the path,
the heat of the morning decreases,
and a coolness tickles my arms.
Gliding toward us as we rise,
four more butterflies.
Now Ten. Now thirty.
We dismount and walk,
higher, higher still, on the path.
Our quiet human movements
seem to boom
beneath what now are clouds
of silent drifting butterflies.

Solemn, we enter the forest
at the place they have chosen
for this year’s sanctuary.
A million individual
gods and goddesses
graciously allow us worship,
as they go about their colony lives.
In the high pine forest I lay myself down
and open wide to all their blessings.
I think of nothing. My mind
is lifted past all clutter.
The flutter of a million wings
sounds a holy, ghostly note
I strain and catch,
a quivering etheric.

Their buttery clutch of the Oyomel
turns tree trunks orange with resting wings,
and covers branches, everything
static changed to pulsing.
And sailing between the trees
butterflies fill a cerulean sky
with apricot patterns of dancing,
The arrangements they make in the air
compose
music, pictures, poems!
We are hushed to silent wonder.
Countless they are, but each
of the many millions of Monarchs
has wing edge spots, distinct
from any one of the others.

Though I never want to leave,
we walk slowly back to our horses.
I turn and bow to these beings,
rejoicing in their survival,
grateful for their teachings.
Their soaring goodness does not cease
but sends its benediction down
not only for we who have journeyed here
but through us, for the world.

©Susa Silvermarie 2017