ON EAGLE LAKE

Martin Steingesser

“ There used to be rivers of butterflies, but now
there are years when there are no butterflies at all.
This is a village of ghosts. . . a paradise lost.”
Homer Aridjis , Naturalist & Poet, Contepec, Mexico

Peel time off the blue air of morning, or sunlight
off the lake’s surface. That’s what I did, drifting so easy you could hear
pickerelweed brushing the sides of the canoe. The gods
are like that sometimes, no credit to me. One moment oxygen
pressed out of my heart, the next some angel
slips a feather of light in my hand. Who knows why
I wanted to be swallowed in that dawn mist. And I don’t give a whit
anyone says finding reasons after the fact is like predicting
yesterday’s weather. I was meant to save one butterfly, this monarch
the early frost put in my hand. None of the monarch orange
and stars dressed over velvety wings and black
twig body had paled. In cupped hands, lifting its ounce of brilliance
toward lips, I breathed the life of blood-warm cells
over the petal-like wings. Breathed. And breathed again.
I could tell more how I did that, drifting through lake smoke
most the next half hour, occasionally paddling, sometimes breathing
over a knee with the monarch, till mist started thinning and sun
warmed on my cheek. Wings were trembling now like harp strings.
Yes, it flew—
                          I’d like to tell you to that forest in Mexico they migrate,
hundreds of thousands filling the trees, their wings closing, opening
like small fans, every tree limb covered in monarchs. What I’ve got
is morning sun, this lake, breathing in my hands.