A Procession

suefurrow, "Bumble Bee No. 9"

A Procession


Marvelous wings filled the morning:
The bourdon bee from grass
To grass heaved his brown sacks;
The butterfly battled with air,
Adorning her wings with light.
Beetles with armoured backs
Flashed steel and bronze so bright,
That a king, it seemed, must pass
For the hordes of the orchard to stare,
Raise huzzah and buzz
With rustic gossamer wing,
Their acclamation thus
Catching sunshine, noon-sound,
Hay-height above the ground,
Though none quite glimpsed the king.


Richard Church
News From the Mountain, 1932

“Marvelous wings” – it’s true, I’ve seen more Monarch butterflies in the last month than all of my life before this. (Maybe this is a Butterfly Year. Too bad we use numbers to mark the years.)  The insects around us are fabulous if we only stop to notice. Fuzz and transparencies, metallic sheens and irridescences, feathery festoons of antennaes, spots and stripes and gaudy spikes – what intricasies are these? Why so much time spent on tiny creatures that pass mostly unnoticed in the grass? That live for a week or a month? Why such detail, such imagination, such a bewildering array? “Adorning her wings with light”, what a beautiful image. Beauty, beauty, beauty – everywhere beauty. Is this not joy, is this not pleasure, is this not overflowing? (That line from Hopkins comes to mind, “what is all this juice and all this joy?”) The Source of all this must be amazing.