I wrote this yesterday afternoon after being driven from my office by multiple cement drills boring into the wall to anchor a new layer of brick. Sure was more peaceful out back. —DH
Question Period
On the grass around the satellite dish
a number of little yellow butterflies
flit between an equal number of dandelions,
gathering up a last collection of fall nectar.
I set aside my obsessive self-absorption–
Who I am? Why do I do the things I do?—
and consider instead these smaller
mysteries aflit on the October air.
Are they yellow because dandelions are?
And why do they go from one dandelion
to another, taking a morsel from each
when each could take its fill from one?
The Amish man, walking across the lot
to harness up the pair of chestnut mares
he stashed behind the doctors’ dumpster
might say, “God made them that way.”
Could be, but that’s too deep for a sunny day,
so I resume my contemplation of butterflies.
The Amish man regards the twin brown rumps
in front of his face, then gives the reins a flick.
Dale Hobson
10/11/11
