Grandfather and butterflies

April 16, 1985

He is an old man looking for butterflies feeding on the trumpet flowers by the barn. His hair, whiter than the blossoms, the moths at the puddle, or the cobwebs on eaves, is thin on his pink scalp. His daughter's kids dart by, scare off a monarch, orange-black lifting and moving in a secret wind. He gets to his knees by the water, white and yellow moths flutter about him, he sees the murky face, curious, sunlit, blurred and unlined, and there, as if on wings and feeling the stir of westerly wind, rises.