The monarch and the key
Migrant and dreamer
Imprisoned in dreams of incompetence
Endless nights of psychological torture
As people you knew
Who used to respect you
Now rejoice in your nightmarish mistakes
When imagined successes
Become flagrant failures
In friendship, love
Professional, social life
Dreams turn all journeys
Into vacant flights
Lectures to empty theatres
Speeches with speechless dialogue
Wrong country, wrong city
Wrong day, wrong everything
Then, at last, a defining moment
An erstwhile antagonist
Understood, capitulated to reason and reality
Gives you a golden key
To escape the nightly bombardment
And the avoidance of dreams
Two peaceful nights follow,
Clarity, so true
In the morning, early in the gym
Weights held proudly high
A reawakening
Outside for coffee
In a glorious dawn
For several days before
A Monarch butterfly
Graced us, what a sight,
A blur of colors and angular design
Drawn into sharp exquisite focus
When alighting on the yellow canna
Flitting into hibiscus blooms
Engaging lavender and lilies so many
Joining with the family of hummingbirds
Of contrasting stationary flight
And the cardinals that match the geraniums
To add an exotic palette to our home
But today, over my alive but black expresso
I noticed it dead
On the ground, now over-run by little ants
Who knew no better
The end of this beautiful butterfly
Migrating, but losing its way
Falling to earth, the pigment dissolving in undue haste
This death took away my key
The dreams are back
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA, August 2022
