Flower and Butterfly
by Theodora Goss

It was lovely while it lasted, said the flower.
For an hour, I had your company.
But the butterfly did not answer.
She flitted away silently.
There were more flowers in the field, all equally
beautiful, and filled with nectar.
She remembered only dimly
what it had been like to be earthbound,
to crawl instead of fly. She was in love
only with the sky and her own motion,
creating elegant eddies on the air,
sometimes here, sometimes there,
inconstant.

The flower, sighing, dug her roots in deeper,
committing herself to what she had:
moist soil, sunlight falling on her petals,
the wind in her leaves, her awareness of winter coming,
when there would be no butterflies
for even the briefest of conversations,
the seeds she was already preparing
to scatter before frost covered the field,
her presentiment of spring.

(The image is Butterfly and Lily by Ohara Koson.)