Butterfly Lovely at Ox Bow

Butterfly Lovely At Ox Bow

Mossy ash and maple

Spruce and sassafras

Willow and pine

Open forest where butterflies play.

Butterfly lovely today

The air exhales butterflies

And blue damsel flies

A jay complains.

Crickets sing

Grasshoppers open their wings

Yellow tiger swallow tails flutter

Then bend slender stems as they

Land on  pink flowers

Their spiral tongues suck nectar

From the sun

They fan their wings in dappled shade

Taste flowers with bushy black feet.

Now a green caterpillar marches up my sleeve

On dozens of feet.

                                         ---Barbara Spring