...stopping on a piece of the broken up walkway by my stairs. I study it, the butterfly and the walkway with its light beige, cracked concrete, dark brown ground and bit of green short grass, which in an odd way from above slightly resembles that part of Rome just up from the Colosseum along the Roman Forum where there are active archaeological digs among the ruins.
Of course, nowhere in sight on the broken up walkway are there the legions of souvenir sellers or street performers. Silver-body-painted lads, frozen like robot statues. Or guys clad as Gladiators, glad to be in a photo for a Euro or two. Or the many pairs of saffron-robed gents, sitting cross legged and in apparent deep meditation, one sitting on a rug on the sidewalk and the other appearing to float about two feet above the ground and in front of the other. Behind them the ruins of temples and arches are silent. Further up is of the seven hills of Rome, with a piazza and across the way you can see where Sophia Loren once lived.
But I digress, so back to you, my petite butterfly.
Why does a butterfly stop flying? The reasons I can come up with:
--To rest
--To eat, or rather digest (because don't you live on flower nectar? No flower nectar here on the walkway.)
--To poop
--To reflect on your existence (so that makes two of us, eh?)
You fold your wings up so you are a slim sliver, a line, a crack on the broken up walk way. Then you open them, tiny russet wings. Is that necessary or restful? It doesn't matter, it's beautiful.
I'm marveling at your body -- is it called a body? All the answers are but a google away but I don't want to see them, or an image of someone like you, outlined, flattened out, dissected, labelled, no thanks. I like you just the way you are. The slow fold and open. Still enough for me to take a photo but my camera, on my phone, would seem so rude an item to introduce here, no, I won't.
You floated up about four inches and made a graceful arc back down about two inches from where you were before. Was that because of me, because I shifted my foot which moved a piece or two of gravel, resulting in that gravelly sound?
"What," you might have thought as you let go of the world, "was that?" And seeing it was just my colossal foot which was still miles from you, you breathed a sigh of relief that brought you back down because:
--you wanted to return to your nap;
--you were still working that nectar through;
--you were in mid-poop;
--you were in the perfect mid-afternoon drowsiness of existential thoughts (like me, yes?)
I moved my foot like that to accommodate a twinge in my lower back, the 357th today, though not the most intense of the day, perhaps you were around earlier for those. Do your wings ever hurt? From seemingly nothing? You wake up one morning and move and squeal (?) in pain and feel really, really old? Well, that was most of my day, but I hope not yours.
I know so little of you, little butterfly, but I must ask, since you have the "fly" in your name, are you related at all to the fly? To the legions of those over-eyed buzzy things? I hope not, I doubt it, I mean no insult. Still, their daily ablutions are quite unspeakable. If you are, is there some way you could ask them not to enter my home and throw themselves around at all hours of the day and night? Much appreciated.
A lot of dogs live in this neighborhood. What do you think of the four huskies that live around the corner from me? Four, one is a puppy, but the same size as the others. The puppy one is the one that cries and whines when outside, which is often. It's hard to love him as much as I do, but I still do. Mostly do you hear the jangly collars of all these different dogs, at somewhat regular intervals? Yes.
I'll be part of that symphony soon when my dog arrives, I'm telling you ahead of time because he will want to play with you. I know he won't catch you. You and I both know that. We will laugh at his trying. Well, I will, I don't know if you get amused enough to show it.
Yes, I'll be a part of making those sounds. I look forward to this as surely it will bring more human interaction into my day. First, I know the interaction will be mostly conversation about the dogs but then I hope it will step along into more human gab and then perhaps some quick invitations for drinks in the yard. I'd like to be part of making those clinky sounds and soft laughs in the summer evenings. I'd like to be part of making those sounds instead of just hearing them.
Know what I mean lonesome little butterfly? Fly butter fly.