THE BUTTERFLY
by Skipwith Cannéll
One day in the lean youth of Summer, a
butterfly was born upon the earth. To a brief
day of beauty she was born,
and to a long night.
Timidly her purple wings unfolded in
the kind warmth of the sun. When they
had grown strong, she began to flutter
hither and thither, from flower to flower,
a wingéd dream flitting as perfumes called her,
from dream to dream.
At last, when the
dark fingers of the night were clutching
at the fields, from the brief
stillness
of twilight arose a brief summer
storm.
Only a few puffs of
wind ruffled the grass,
only a few
growls of thunder silenced the birds,
only a few warm drops of rain pattered
among the trees. Then the storm passed and
the sun shone over the wet earth as a sweetheart shines through her tears with
promise of pardon.
But the warm wind had blown the butterfly
against a twig, so that her wings were broken;
and the soft summer rain had crushed her
to the earth, so that she died. But there had
been one passing, whose dreams were in
music, and he had felt her beauty in his own.
And he spun a web of harmony from the
rainbow of his sorrow and the skeins of her
beauty, so that men who had lost their dreams
were snared in his net, and women whose
hearts were buried wept for the death of a butterfly....
