This poem emerged from a dream that I had. The dream was of a herd of lemmings racing toward a cliff. A single lemming froze in place like a single frame in a movie. The other lemmings continued largely like lemmings do, and, as they approached the cliff, the ground beneath them crumbled. The lemmings fell in a mass of dirt and lemmings, nearly indistinguishable. As this was happening, a multitude of butterflies descended onto the single frozen-in-place lemming. After the butterflies completely cover the lemming, they flew the lemming into the distant sky.
I see this dream as a metaphor for mutual aid, particularly for those who break away, for any reason, the suicidal mob that is our nation. Be a butterfly. Fly with the multitudes of butterflies.
Masses of Butterflies
The lemmings scurried
Razing forward
Nose to tail
Untoward a cliff peering
When a singular lemming
Had a stroke
Of unusual genus
Frozen in place
Inaction hero pose
Not with standing the species carried on
Most other lemmings were rankled
The odd lemming was intrigued
Even as the ranks hurtled bye
Simultaneously
The bluff beginning to crumble
Beneath the lead lemmings
And the wait of the uncontemplated
An inescapable fall
Where animals peered indistinguishable
From the dust
It came
Ground into the sky
Death wading below
Making more than mountain of mole hill
Still
That soul lemming
Eyes fixed
Above
Hi noon
About to be flocked
Eclipsed by a swarm of butterflies
Which separate light from dark
In the mettle of the day
Sow little
Won after another
Alighted
That inscrutable statue to the unmovable
That shield to all that would blank it
Uplifting beyond what can be seen
Completely taken
Wherever butterflies freely assemble
And call home
An open question
What to make of awe this
Yet certain onlookers
Sharing such fate
Can lonely say
Amoral of a story
Of lives and souls shuddered
In efface of
Any out landish worship
Of masses of butterflies
Befalling us awe