Should you get a bit of grit in your boots when you are crossing Haystacks, treat it with respect – it might be me.
Alfred Wainwright.
It’s hot hot hot for August
so I wonder if it’s a mirage;
a lady in a black ball gown
at the foot of a mountain.
She’s hopping on alternate
feet and pointing,
Look, Look!
We’re in a copse, a still sun-trap
as far as I can see, but then
I clock two white butterflies
somersaulting higher and higher
above holly and sycamore.
A drought has dried up a lake
which looks like a lunar Mare.
Avian flu has killed countless
lapwing, herons and swans;
a few corpses lie in grey mud.
I mention the decline of insects
worldwide and she lets rip
with the half-expected climate
compound noun, except she
substitutes Armageddon
for change.
One of the butterflies dances
towards us and she whispers,
blue blue blue, it’s a holly blue
as it zigzags across leaves
like a stamp-sized piece
of torn off summer sky.
Her parting shot’s a kind of
tango with an invisible partner.
I aim my binoculars at
the disappearing blue
and remember the ancients
used the same word
for butterfly and soul.
by Eric Nicholson
Eric Nicholson is retired and lives in the NE of England. He is a visual artist as well as a poet.
photo by Brett Sayles
Aayo Magazine 