The Black Hairstreak at Ditchling Common

 

Here is the Black Hairstreak, posing beautifully on the Common.  If I looked as good as that I would be happy to pose too.  Captain B was off marshalling a swim - from dry land - on Saturday, and there was a fun run on the seafront.  The day started off oddly grey and rainy. I had had a bad night, but did, after some tea and pain med, get back to sleep and sleep through. So I am certainly better than I was.

Maybe at my age, you never feel that well.  Something is always hurting, that's for sure.  But I still feel full of gratitude for the gift of life.

Here is a butterfly poem from Emily Dickinson:

Two Butterflies went out at Noon
Emily Dickinson

Two Butterflies went out at Noon—And waltzed above a Farm— Then stepped straight through the Firmament And rested on a Beam— 

And then—together bore awayUpon a shining Sea— Though never yet, in any Port— Their coming mentioned—be— 

If spoken by the distant Bird—If met in Ether SeaBy Frigate, or by Merchantman—No notice—was—to me—
https://poemanalysis.com/emily-dickinson/two-butterflies-went-out-at-noon/

IF I am understanding the poem right, the butterflies seem to have ascended to heaven, and maybe the poet herself was hoping to end up there when the time came.

Yet the Bible promise is that we can "inherit the earth" and live forever upon it. So I hope that God will wake Emily Dickinson from the dreamless sleep of death when the time comes, and she will see this lovely earth again.  She clearly loved the creation.

And I am so glad that the Victorian mania for catching and killing butterflies, then displaying them on pins seems to have vanished.  And why did people - some people - want the heads of animals all over their walls!?!

I wish I could write a poem about a butterfly, or a moth, but my poetry writing days seem to be over.  I do have a character called Flutterby in my thriller "Disraeli Hall" - but that is as near as I have got.

Yet this photograph is inspiring - something about the combination of hairstreak and fern, both such lovely creations... its green perch... Col's surprise and pleasure at finding it. He rang me up to tell me about it.  There is definitely a poem in there somewhere. Maybe it could speak?

I waited on you and your camera/posed on an angled stem/so you could find your treasure/shoot your little gem.

That is the best I can do.

The first Swallow-tailed Moth of the season turned up on our balcony on Sunday night.  An exquisite creature -  another exquisite creation. Jehovah made the earth so lovely, just for us. And, even after 6,000 years of falling from paradise and perfection, and with nature now "red in tooth and claw", we can still see the beauty everywhere.  And I feel so sad at the thought I might soon be leaving it, and the people I love - AND the person I love most in all the world, Captain Butterfly.