Even More Than Hope: Painted Lady Butterflies Poem by Sally Sandler

Like spirits, they will dart across our path
in drifts, and zig-zag past our cheeks and hands
just out of reach, and whirling toward a land
far north of us, by predetermined math.

It seems a miracle, winged migration—
almost as hard to fathom as moon flight.
What tiny compass guides them day and night
in rivers of raw determination?

Their journey symbolizes more than hope:
They breathe into each moment the belief
that happiness as real and bright as wings
is just ahead … and therefore we can cope,

and fill heavy hearts with newfound lightness,
and bathe a moment more in their brightness.


March 2019: Record numbers of Painted Lady butterflies migrate from Mexico to the Pacific Northwest; the exact location is embedded in the genes they pass along to their offspring. Multiple generations of each starting butterfly