Butterflies Poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph

The famed butterflies of North East India
I saw metre by metre, bend by bend,
On the mountainous road, winding down
To the plains, all the way from Bomdila
On the high, green Eastern Himalayas.

While the book on those birds
By Dr Salim Ali I procured
With difficulty from BNHS Mumbai
For this visit lies asleep, unopened
In my bag, still.

But these gems of Nature
Are all there, twisting their way
On the road, sometime single,
More often in pairs.
They have to complete the job,
Copulate in the short time given.
They dance round each other:
Sometimes I saw three of them
Together: my mind lazily
Wandered and wondered
“Is that a son or a rival,
The third one? ”
Mostly I saw the pairs of same type,
Except one where the white
Was courting a black.

The movements of butterflies
Fascinate me no end.
How powerful their eyes
Must be to save them,
From accidents while
They are being buffeted
By both the wind and waves
In the ocean of air.