Please, Sir, I Want Some More

I returned to Lydia's and Mary's gardens today, thinking I might find the Black Swallowtail caterpillar or others like him.

Someone filled my bowl again, and it was good.

Gulf Fritillary and Bee

Gulf Fritillary

Long-tailed Skipper

Long-tailed Skipper

Monarch

Sulphur

Dewy Gulf Fritillary

 I'll queue up again in the morning.

A Fever

Today, butterflies flapped everywhere I looked: a Gulf Fritillary flung herself, flopping and flapping, at vines and leaves along one eight-foot stretch of a Lake Cheston path, beginning near the Passion Flowers where she may have emerged; on the beach a half-dozen American Snouts circled my hat like a landing strip and sucked sweat from my hand, while below me a single female Monarch butterfly puddled, seeking moisture from warm sand; two Eastern Tiger Swallowtails spun round J's zinnias, while this single Pipevine Swallowtail supped and sucked at the Cardinal Flowers overhanging J's pond.  

A fever ran through them all.

A Note of Thanks

Dear Lydia,

I imagine that your recovery means a few days away from your garden, so I thought I'd bring you up-to-date.

This afternoon, your passion flowers, heaped high, bloomed mightily.  Bees buzzed and one napped like an odalisque in a fantastical painting by Dali.  Birds chirped and flitted into and out of your sunflowers.  A sulphur butterfly hung for a moment from the lip of a coneflower before winging on.  Skippers piled on Mary's zinnias, and Gulf Fritillaries swung from bloom to bloom to bloom.  So many, I had only to turn a bit here or there and snap snap snap their magnificent orange upper-wings.

I thought of last year's caterpillar, curled like a comma in a leaf, and smiled.  You grow things well, Lydia.  And I hope you know your green thumb makes me happy.

Be well,

Robley

Broken Wings

Still recovering from a stroke, after which she had to learn practically everything anew, including speech, an elderly friend now has to learn to live with a lower leg amputation and with pain but without free movement. Yesterday, I saw her photograph. She smiled widely despite the bandages and the huge facial bruise she had earned when she fell out of bed. Later I saw a beaten butterfly, a Gulf Fritillary, fighting for balance and nectar in a powerful, chilly wind. Surely the butterfly can't live much longer with much of wing torn away, I thought. But it persisted and fed and held to the blooms.My friend and the fritillary are both broken, both determined, and both beautiful.