Category: Poetry & Songs
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Field Guide
Usually known as Red Admiral though called by some (like Nabokov)Red Admirable, by others The Alderman. In Latin, Vanessa atalanta, for the goddessfamed among the Greeks for her fleetness.Vermilion bands across panther-black wingsmilk-spots spilled over their squared-off tipslittle blue stud at the tail. Flies all overthe northern world-I’ve even seen it in Iceland. The caterpillars…
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Chatbot AI Writes Poetry
Chatbot AI – Melanie’s request:I want you to pretend to be Mary Oliver and write a poem about Speyeria coronis.And here it is: In meadows bathed in golden hue,Where wildflowers dance, kissed by dew, I spy a flutter, a delicate flight,A Speyeria coronis, a beacon of light.Oh, wings adorned with vibrant grace, A tapestry of…
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Butterflies and Whales
Butterflies and Whales As like us as unlike, no trick of light – the swimmers sort seas with baleen: bound mouth-combs of keratin-hair; the flyers, probe wild blooms with siphons: their proboscises paired and unwound – all rise. One kind in air. Another in brine. One through kelp. Another out of kinnikinnick. Breech or spyhop,…
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The Curator of Butterflies
for JPP The Curator of Butterflies shares his narrow office with the Curator of Spiders. Each has an ancient desk, ledgers, binders, texts and cramped specimen cabinets stacked to the ceiling. In his: a dozen trays of Arctics, a score of Marbles. The Ringlets, the Wood Nymphs, & row on row of the puzzling Buckwheat…
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The Troublin’ Buckwheat Blues
Got them troublin’ buckwheat – Euphilotes – blues, Got them troublin’ buckwheat – Euphilotes – blues,Tell me how many species; brother won’t you give me a clue?Are there 1, 2, 3, 4? Break it down brother, give me the lore.3, 4, 5 – or a passel more?One on every buckwheat from here to Baltimore?You got…
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Blues ID Songs Blues
[Editor’s Note: Get out your favorite field guide so that you will have photographs as you follow Martha’s songs.] Acmon Blue: Ol’ Plebejus Acmon was proud Of his dorsal broad orange band loud, His black spots were seen To have sparkle and sheen, But his forewings were not so endowed! Square Spotted Blue: Euphilotes battoides…
