Sunday, May 13, 2012

Bird and Butterfly

I'm in butterfly mode today.
I was standing in front of my picture window yesterday, digging sunshine, thinking lazy thoughts, when a butterfly fluttered by. Beautiful.
Followed shortly thereafter by a bird who swooped in and snagged the butterfly, perched on the wrought iron flower pot holder on the banister, and commenced to chow down.
I was horrified.
The butterfly was flapping his wings in the birds mouth but was beyond escape. The bird kept snapping his beak, the wings stopped flapping and eventually the butterfly disappeared down the bird's throat.
I was describing the scenario to my lovely wife who was essentially laughing at my sensitivity. She was giving me the "that's how life works" point of view. And I'm sure most of you out there are thinking the same thing.
Now, one of the things that makes our marriage interesting is our different approaches to life. I have an artistic approach to life. I am not saying I am an artist, I am not singing my own praises. What I mean is that I am not a practical guy. Nothing I do makes sense and I like it that way. I see things differently and I do not and will never accept practicality or the concept that this is the way things work.
Which probably explains why I live in dire poverty.
Carol is rock solid. She understands how life works, lives by the rules, and accepts bizarre concepts like "you have to work for a living whether you like it or not" and "you have to live within a budget".
Very strange.
But truthfully, if it wasn't for Carol we would be living in a cave eating butterflies.
Here's what got to me. Birds are delicate creatures. They fly, they sing, they are pretty, I dig them. Butterflies are even more delicate creatures. So delicate they almost don't exist. Beautiful. Peaceful.
As I watched the bird eat the butterfly, the bird suddenly appeared brutal to me. I saw it differently. The image won't last; birds are my sanity check as I walk. They like my singing as much as I like theirs.
It was a harsh moment watching beauty killing beauty. It disturbed me.
Coincidentally, later on I was reading the paper that my magnificent son writes for and there was a piece in there about the Karner butterfly. The official state of NH butterfly.
This official state this and official state that amuses me. How far do these people go? How many official state things are there?
I want to see a list.
Here's what blew me away. The Karner butterfly, as an adult, will live for one or two weeks. Can you imagine a two week lifespan? Would kind of change your perspective, wouldn't it?
For one thing, if I knew I was only going to live for two weeks, I wouldn't have a blog. There would be no time for whining.
A drastically short lifespan would be good for us humans, perspective-wise. We live our lives as if we are immortal. Wasting time, cultivating pettiness, worrying about useless crap.
Two weeks would not give you enough time for that. You would want to burn brightly in those two weeks; scorch the earth with intensity and go out roaring like a lion.
Highlighting the wonderful relationship between man and nature, the Karner butterfly is actually on the federal endangered species list. The caterpillars of the Karner blue butterflies feed only on wild blue lupine plants; much of the habitat where the lupine plants grow has been destroyed.
We weren't happy enough that they only live two weeks; we decided to wipe them out completely.
Anyway, that is today's butterfly rant. I pledge to continue enjoying nature, drinking in the beauty and ignoring the brutality. I must do this intensely over the eight or ten good days available to me before two feet of snow once again blanket the region.
Please note: I have completed an application and submitted it to our forward thinking state officials requesting that I be designated as the official state blogger.

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