Tiny Butterfly Poetry Extravaganza

I’m feeling almost not worthy of the beautiful poems you wrote about the humble butterfly I posted on Friday! Here’s a sneak preview of the reason I designed a butterfly in the first place.

This is a detail of a piece that will be in my upcoming show in Berlin, which I’ve been working on nonstop for the past several weeks. (More on that soon!)

Moving on: there were so many fantastic poems that I can’t pick a single favorite. I have FOUR favorites, and it was difficult to even narrow it down to that. I’m going to order them here from silliest to most serious.

From Stephanie:

This right here is Tiny Butterfly
She’ll eat any kind of food that comes by!
Whether it’s a slice of rhubarb pie
or a bowl of noodles from Shanghai
even soup which was really fluorescent pink dye!
Hmmmm… that’s probably most likely why…
She has such bright pink wings to fly!

From Sophia:

There once was a little pink butterfly,
Who liked making scrapbooks on Shutterfly.
But one day she tripped…
All her captions were flipped!
That poor little pink “flutterby”.

From Zoe Lowinfell Cauvel :

Petite Lepidoptera, Butterfly.
Fluttering ‘round in my mind’s eye.
More magical than the fourth of July.
Diaphanous wings leave me tongue-tied.
Upon warm breezes glistered wings glide,
and awaken memories of summer time.

From MaryKate:

Migration
The wings of these, the butterflies,
wink their scarlet mist and I utter sighs.
Wisps of membrane, each fold
a fan, somehow hold
the fat forms in air.
I see them there
bobbing along flower
to flower, passing each hour
as though they could live beyond life. Pine
for what they cannot have: the distant buds, time.
Each petal falls and then, they swift of wing do fly
over far-off hills to birth their babes, to die.

I am so eager for spring right now! Because I can’t make myself choose a favorite, all four of these poets will get a set of tiny mochi pins!

(Winners, I’ll email you soon for your addresses.)

Thank you to everyone who contributed a poem!