The Butterfly Among the Lilies

Little garden gnomes sit among the flowers and smile

With little stony smiles, eyes shaded by tall red hats.

Painted animals in chipped and fading colors hide,

Hungry mouths ever near the leaves and ever closed.

Morning glories and daylilies light a land of frozen peace and still magic.

But when the moonflowers glow and the fireflies play,

Do the elves come out from their dwellings beneath the nettles,

to count the stars with the spirit of the elder-tree?

Do the faeries dance in little mushroom rings,

In flaring columbine skirts or tiny bluebell hats?

Who kisses the petals of the starry aster closed,

Watched by the sleepless eyes of the evening primroses?

Do they sip dew from the buttercups as the gentle sun rises

Then lie down to rest beneath the shadow of the mayapple's leaves?

When the four o'clocks are wet from an afternoon rain,

Do they play among the raindrops, away from disbelieving eyes?

When forget-me-nots spring up, scattered in the green grass,

Who bids us remember, and what did we forget?

Who knows whose table the wild strawberry graces,

And what alights on the clover for a brief sunlit moment?

Who knows what the butterfly among the lilies really is?