Butterflies and poetry: sounds like a good name for a book. Well, maybe just this week’s topics.
There is so much to learn about monarch butterflies, too much for this human-interest column. I recently listened to a radio show (NPR’s “On Point”) about them and was taken back to the joyfulness seen in my three little boys when they found the green caterpillars amongst the prolific milkweed around our house in Idaho.
They brought a caterpillar home, punched holes in the lid of a gallon jar, filled it with milkweed, and watched the miracle of the transformation of the caterpillar into a magnificent creature with wings. The caterpillar first spins a silk button from which it hangs in a J-shape while its skin splits and falls away. Underneath that old skin is the jade green chrysalis bejeweled with gold dots. Within a couple of weeks, the adult wings of the butterfly could be seen through the now transparent covering and soon thereafter, the Monarch flapped its wings and the boys set it free.
Here in Washington state, monarchs are only seen east of the Cascades and then only where milkweed grows. Ann Potter, Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife insect conservation specialist, says that milkweed grows at elevations lower than 2,000 feet and in drainages where there is good access to water.
The closest place to the Methow Valley where milkweed and monarchs might be seen is “along the Columbia River, along Highway 97, (where) milkweed often grows along road edges,” Potter says.
The butterfly often thought to be a yellow monarch is actually a swallowtail. It is just as beautiful and accessible (it’s a slow flapper, and will even land on your finger) as the monarch. They have most recently been landing on our hanging baskets and lavender plants. A friend of mine recently saw them diving and dipping their wings in Black Pine Lake and raised the question of why they would do that. In my limited research, I could not find the answer — maybe just like us, to cool off!
On to poetry: Poets from around Central Washington gathered to read their work from the 2022 “Shrub-Steppe Poetry Journal” on Thursday (Aug. 4) here in Mazama. The Inn at Mazama hosted the release party on the back patio on a cooler summer night than the week before.
I tried my hand at poetry while in younger days, but always had some difficulty interpreting the work of famous poets when required to do so in school. I still remember trying to write a paper on the meaning of Robert Frost’s “Birches.” Now that you can so easily find answers online, I looked up “Birches” on Wikipedia and, of course, found under the subtitle “analysis:” In the poem, the act of swinging on birches is presented as a way to escape the hard rationality or “truth” of the adult world, if only for a moment.
I’d sure like to read my high school analysis and see if I came anywhere close. One thing for sure, I have never forgotten the last line of Frost’s poem: “One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.”
It was an enlightening experience to hear the works of Methow’s Confluence Poets, including a few that I know personally and knew that they wrote poetry and one that I had no idea wrote poetry. One young woman, just 21, came from Ellensburg to read her poem that had been selected to be included in the annual volume.
Thank you, butterflies and poets for giving me content for this week!
