THE BUTTERFLY

“The eye follows the hand,

  the mind follows the eye,

  the heart follows the mind.”

      —from the Natya Shastra

With no appreciable weight,

a butterfly alit

and rode my finger

an hour or longer.

Holding my hand ahead,

I let the butterfly lead.

We walked down to the kill,

its wings an upright sail.

I was almost afraid to breathe,

but my feet knew the path—

its slipknot roots

and slingshot branches.

I sat down on a rock.

I couldn’t believe my luck.

The world then seemed kind,

a butterfly on my hand,

its bronze wings spread flat,

pulsing to raise its body heat.

Like a fluttering eyelash,

it tickled the web of flesh

between forefinger and thumb.

“My life can never be the same!”

I thought, scanning the leopard spots

of its eyes; its veins like pleats;

its scalloped scales; its legs,

six knobby little twigs;

the thorax’s fuzzy patina;

the two slender antennae,

bulb-tipped, like matchsticks;

and the pointed black circumflex

markings on each scored wing:

accents from the mother tongue.

With its proboscis it sipped

salt from my hand and tapped

out a secret code,

the secret names of God,

invisible to man,

imprinted on my skin.

If I could have become a fern—

a stone—a stalk of corn . . . .

Instead, my left hand twitched

and the butterfly detached

itself, all in a breath,

my article of faith,

momentarily tame

as if out of a dream,

now circling the rock,

not coming back.