Swallowtails
Every year we till and sow
our kitchen garden, parsnips in
a six-foot line, to catch the glow
of warm sunshine. The seeds begin
to sprout, then long-stemmed rosettes grow,
a mass of curly leaves. That’s when
small pearly yellow eggs are laid—
round globs of Papilio pomade.
Soon slinky caterpillars hatch,
attired in motley festal gear,
green-yellow-black, absurd mismatch.
Voraciously they chomp. We cheer
their pluck, hope predators won’t snatch.
These gobbling moppets persevere,
then pupate: gray-brown chrysalises,
so mute, you’d think that all’s amiss.
Their shrouds lie still, like death’s malaise.
But as in Psyche’s ancient myth
their tombs are but a fleeting phase.
The sleepers’ souls transform their pith,
mutate to butterflies. Ablaze,
flaxen-flecked, they flutter with
the currents of a balmy breeze,
a summer’s day of sun and ease.
Segmented younglings, gaudy-dressed
consume a toxin, apiole,
that parsnips’ feathered leaves possess.
Their bodies ooze that poison’s smell:
spiders and birds will not aggress!
In nature’s play, all things end well.
Each animal, both small and great
prospers in its portioned state.
How do questing females spot
our plants, alight, then drop, just so,
their eggs? It seems all creatures plot
their kind’s survival, somehow know
what works, and where to tie each knot.
This real-life metamorphic show
is more complex than Ovid’s schemes,
less likely than fantastic dreams.
Gray Matter
For practice, I unscramble daily “Jumbles,”
daft puzzles for my brain, to make it hum,
excel at writing poems. Instead, it grumbles,
declines to amplify its cerebrum.
Its balkiness makes clear I’m not in charge—
foiling my aims, as would a willful boy.
My plans to coax its ridges to enlarge
go nowhere, for it has in its employ
the shock troops of my stinted daily speech,
that swarm like army ants to sting and stun
word-embryos I’ve nursed through ceaseless study.
How is the race for lyric merit won?
Dear brain, you lack our childhood’s spur and reach.
I’m blocked: my words clichéd, my verses muddy.
Poet’s Note: The Jumble Daily is a word puzzle published widely in the US. I call it “daft” (rather than “deft”) because the level is “easy” and the solution is always a rather silly joke employing simplistic wordplay. https://games.usatoday.com/games/amu-jumble
Mary Jane Myers resides in Springfield, Illinois. She is a retired JD/CPA tax specialist. Her debut short story collection Curious Affairs was published by Paul Dry Books in 2018.
