Frolicking (Birthday poem for Richard)

I love late March and April - the time of dark and pale butterflies. When I lived in Simonstown, there were so many that they softly slapped your skin as you walked through clouds of them. Now again, in Hogsback, they create a happy fizz about the legs - they generally fly low, keeping close to the grassheads.

When I walked about this morning, in search of a photograph for a friend's birthday wish, a pair of them kept still enough to let me get close. One of them stayed long enough for me to get a solo shot. He let me come so near, my phone's camera couldn't get his face in focus!

I thank my friend for allowing me to share his birthday poem with you, so you, too, can joy in the feel of the butterflies.

Frolicking
Birthday poem for Richard 

Black butterflies
- on brambles and
on forest grasses -
frolicking.

- Silke Heiss, 28th March 2019

Closer and closer my camera came, but he did not stir.

Butterfly pair alighting.

Entymologists please note:
These "black butterflies" are the Common Bush Brown (Bicyclus Safitza Safitza), but the poem needs their blackness for lightness of sound. "Brown" followed by "brambles" in the next line would ground both the poem and the butterflies! Poetic licence ensures the poem's as well as the creatures' integrity, each in their own context.