North American Butterfly

by Chris Hopkins / April 8th, 2018

Beauty is a wave.
Like radio out near Jupiter singing to the storm.
Maybe I see these things as fire
waiting.
Maybe I should call them – today’s miracle.
Out west the orchards still give fruit
while our rooflines
start to basks in gasoline.
The bird’s voices have been lost
whether they call out in the morning for love or bliss
they soon call it off.
Their gift is knowing when to give (up).
In the pushing of our day, off the road heat of August,
I find my first of the day.
Under the shade of chaos feeding on a split mango
in this collage of butterfly wings,
my jewelled wave.
My second comes in a ricochet, an echo of running feet,
the hard pings off concrete.
The Sound has no horizon and is nothing without perspective.
I never question its haste.
I catch only the flow of a new accent in passing,
only a divine flash of a tender sun
off the mirrorball valley bank, golden,
and the smell of the unwashed after the rain
spilling in its tarmac rill.
When the city is in the plumb
with wine and surrender, then I find them easy.
In the owl light
the long grass out front
hides my feet like brook water
and the wetness is as pure.
I find my you,
as bright as the burning store.

Chris Hopkins, was born and raised in Neath South Wales, surrounded by machines and mountains, until he moved to Oxford in his early twenties. He currently resides in Canterbury and works for the NHS. Chris, who claims poetry has been "my ladder out of some dark places" has had poems published in Tuck Magazine, the online literary journal 1947, Transcendent Zero Press and Duane's PoeTree. Two of his early e-book pamphlets "Imagination is my Gun" and "Exit From a Moving Car" are available on Amazon. Read other articles by Chris.

This article was posted on Sunday, April 8th, 2018 at 8:01am and is filed under Poetry.