This morning I received a question from a poet who was trying to implement ULev-style collapsible sidebars on her blog. While tooling about on her blog I found the beginnings of a collection of butterfly-related poetry. I like butterflies, poetry, and especially poems about flight (as you all know considering the many poems I have written about birds). One of the blogger's poems caught my eye…
From Mysteries Within article A Butterfly Hovers Closely:
A butterfly hovers closely
And then quickly moves away,
Swiftly going where so ever
Her heart may freely say.A butterfly lowers and rises
With the winds’s gusty breath,
As if coupled within a dance
Of a loving tenderness.The butterfly only knows
How it feels to have wings,
To kiss the petals of flowers
In such elegant flitterings.To have but one moment
Of such an exquisite flight,
Would be like a dream
Where all seems so right.
There are a few minor issues of meter, but altogether, I like it. Given that I've romanticized dozens of bird species, why not romanticize butterflies? Though I found the idea that the butterfly knows only wingedness a definite oversight, since all butterflies begin life as caterpillars, crawling on leaves. I've always liked poems written in response to other poems, so I couldn't resist posting one of my own as a comment. Here it is:
The problem is anatomy my lepidopt’ric friend,
The leaf-worm’s physiology includes a winged end.
Alas poor humans, you and I, are built of baser things,
Our beaded necklace – DNA – includes no jewel for wings.
While there’s no harm in dwelling on the beauty of a star,
Let it n’er dissuade you from loving what you are,
Be it mariposa, papillon, or schmetterling,
The butterfly is a different, not a better thing…
It may be a symphony of color in each part,
But has mind for drinking nectar, instead of thinking, art,
Or any of the mental pleasures, and so remember this,
Our wings are born in poetry – that is our chrysalis.
Yes, I know “lepidopteric” is not a word, but you still knew what I was talking about didn't you? Feel free to pull me over on that one, I'll be happy to show you my poetic license. 
Eek… Oh I'm not a poet… I wish. I love poetry. That site is just a testing ground for my themes, and I found some butterfly related content to fill space for better testing.
I do love poetry, and I love your poem.
Heh! And here I thought that you wrote the thing! Now that I check I note that poem appears many places on the web and is attributed as “author unknown”. I was trying to be diplomatic about the meter because I didn't want to offend you, it really does need work… something along the lines of:
(8) A butterfly hovers closely
(7) And then quickly moves away,
(8) Swiftly going where so ever
(6) Her heart may freely say.
(8) A butterfly drops and rises
(7) On the breeze's soft caress,
(7) As if coupled in a dance
(6) Of loving tenderness.
(8) The butterfly knowing only
(7) What it feels like to have wings,
(7) And kissing flowerpetals
(6) In elegant flittings.
(8) To have only one brief moment
(7) Of such sweet, exquisite, flight,
(7) Would be like a happy dream
(6) Where everything seems right.
Still not perfect but better. The original author did some work on the meter but seems to have ignored the stresses, and so the poem stumbles awkwardly in places.
I hate that butterfly poem, but I love yours, Chuck. Generally I don't like poetry, so that's not much of an insult to the butterfly poem. I especially hate Dr. Seuss knock-offs with bad meter. Ouch. Reading a poem with bad meter is like stumbling when you're out for a walk.
However. Caterpillars basically turn into a soup when they're in the chrysalis, so I doubt there are any memories leftover from the caterpillar life once they're a butterfly.
Caterpillar soup. Eeeeew. I wish I'd read that comment *before* I went out to lunch…
Julie
I can't find confirmation of that on the web, but I think we saw it in a documentary. On the web, I did find the site of a woman who had experimented a lot, trying to successfully get caterpillars to metamorphosize in a box, and she says that the head of the butterfly (for the species she was using) was where the tail of the original caterpillar was, and the caterpillar's head was part of the chrysalis (sort of chomped onto a branch, I think, holding it up). Of course, that could have been skin that was shed, as they can shed quite a lot. I'd like to find confirmation of the soup thing. Most caterpillar/butterfly sites seem to be about the monarch, and I'm pretty sure the documentary we saw was about creatures in the rainforest, so maybe it's different for different species.
Either way, soup or no, the memory retention of the average butterfly is probably measured in seconds anyway.
When I was a child, I saw a TV show in which the characters were anthropomorphosized animals (puppets). One was a caterpillar who metamorphosized, and once he was a butterfly, he didn't remember any of his friends any longer. I cried until I'm sure my mother was sorry she'd shown me the program.
Chuck, I've sent you the Indie Virus, now you have to pass it along.
Check my link to see what I mean.