Flighty Things

Abstract

Flighty Things Robyn Rowland (bio) There is one large butterfly.Only one. Each day it skimsaround our high decks, abovethe cotoneaster laden red withberries just reaching the railing.I can never capture it on film.Only my mind keeps it free in me.Large as a small sparrow,coal black, white heart-shapedsplotches on its wide wings,its size taunts belief.Stunned, I went in search of a name,an explanation for its solitudefinding only the first.Orchard Swallowtail, male,with nothing like a swallow tail at all.To name something that isn't there,to name its invisibility seems right at present.Inside this house of isolation, pinnedto my father at 100, I who have beenthe Painted Lady, the Wanderer, migratingthese many years, flitting between worlds,relish its flight, the surprise of it daily, swingand updrift of it heading for our small lemontree loaded this year with yellow globesbecoming lanterns on the turn of day. [End Page 379] Robyn Rowland Robyn Rowland has published fourteen books, including eleven collections of poems. Under This Saffron Sun—Safran Güneşin Altında (Knocknarone Press, Ireland, 2019) and This Intimate War Gallipoli/Çanakkale 1915—İçli Dışlı Bir Savaş: Gelibolu/Çanakkale 1915 (republished by Spinifex Press, 2018) are bilingual (with Turkish translations by Mehmet Ali Çelikel); and her Mosaics from the Map was published in Ireland by Doire Press (2018). Her poems appear in national and international journals and in many anthologies, including eight editions of Best Australian Poems. Copyright © 2020 Wayne State University Press