Poem: Remembering the Butterfly

(this poem came from a memory I've had all these years, from first grade!)





Remembering the Butterfly


I watched as the boys
pinned the butterfly’s wings.
I watched as it struggled,
in vain, to be free.
It’s brief life made briefer.
So soon it was stilled!
And I cried and I grieved,
wondering why this should be!
We gazed at it close–up,
powdery and still.
Pinned dead to the wall,
for those un-told hours!
It’s beauty diminished
in my ’ little girl’ eyes,
compared to it’s ‘Free Flight’
among the spring flowers!


June Kellum
Aug. 2004