The Butterfly Farmer’s Breathless Monologue After Giving Another Tour of Their Greenhouse
A Poem by Dennis Camire
“Though thrilled to disclose them tasting
with feet and old enough to have flown
Inside the ears of T. rex, our true purpose
is farming this Kafka-like metamorphosis
where the chrysalis of tired, uninspired faces
butterflies into wonder’s winged smiles
as kids gawk at these daytime northern lights
and poetize “flying flowers” or “confetti of insects.”
Yes, soon, then, there’s this promising sowing
of the hard to grow marvel as visitors now coax
butterflies to alight arms pocked with drops
of cool aid—or they linger in the Emerging Room
gaping at swallowtails hanging upside down
for the two hours needed to fill wilted wings
with the blood and oxygen required to fly ….
which is what we’re doing now espying butterflies
in fluttering, admiring eyes so like my wife’s
when musing on wonder’s like luminous wings
not so monarch-endangered if another classroom
of kids pleaded for a butterfly garden kit.
Linger, now, with us as we linger in harvesting
the day’s sweet, ripe, wonder words attesting
to us farming hearts over hectors, souls over soil,
via adoration’s miracle grow that even inspires
the night-shift dad—dragged to chaperone—
to skip with his girl through the field of asters
after witnessing each pupa’s “color plasticity”
mirroring any hue of flora it happens upon;
and we pause to see the world possibly redeemed
by restoring one fallow body at a time to bloom
with fascination for the monarch evolving to fatten
on milkweed that’s poisonous to her predators;
and we feel the field trip is as heart healthy
as any organic collard as science confirms
how adoration release endorphins making
our organs more vibrant and synchronized
and so like the two of us we think, during
our evening mediation where, pondering
more proof of restoring some of the earth’s
precious, eroded “top-soul” of wonder,
we feel as beautiful as any pair of painted ladies
feasting atop our stores of Florida, cut oranges.”
Dennis Camire is the recent winner of the Charles Moore Prize and is author of the poetry collections, Anthology of Awe and Wonder(Deerbrook Editions, Combed by Crows (Deerbrook Editions), and Stone by Stone (Finishing Line Press). He teaches and tutors writing at Central Maine Community. The former director of Maine Poetry Central and the founder of The Portland Poet Laureate Program, his work has appeared in The Mid-American Review, Poetry East, Spoon River Review, Lothlorien Review, Alluvium, Amethyst, Café Review, Canary, Hamilton Stone Review, Speckled Trout Review and on Maine Public Radio. He lives in an A-frame in West Paris, Maine. He is also the “spokes-poet” for the mom-and-pop owned company, “Soil Foods,” which farms worms for worm castings. Currently, he so-hosts the monthly Third Thursday Reading at Obscura Café in Lewiston, and hosts the monthly First Friday Reading at the Blanchard Gallery in hallowell, and hosts the annual poetry celebration at The Gem Theater in Bethel.
