Gentle Swallowtail bows and skips, whirls and dives, sunlight glistening August’s golden sun.

Flittering on the ground’s twigs, shadows, and fallen petals

Suddenly up, up, upward this reeler soars toward the flowers above, catch wind’s breath.

Catching the wind’s breath, this tiny being fleetly moves on.

Such is the moment captured in the mind’s eye,

Yet Swallowtail survives in thunderstorms, too, its tiniest velvet wings

Taking on water then flicking drops onto waiting grass below.

Stronger than the winds yet sailing on them, Swallowtail skitters a light jig.

No migration comes for this little one:

What the world brings is what Swallowtail accepts.

Opposing spring’s showers and summer’s beams,

Winter’s chill sparks a new turn of metamorphosis.

The fleeting dance slows, halts, and comes to slumber,

A death comes for one in the darkness of winter while

New wings build within a chrysalis, a rhythm for dance

Already building to a music nature will provide.