Thursday 5 January 2012

The Butterfly Garden.

The butterfly garden. Flowering shrubs attracting flocks of fluttery butterflies. The domain theirs. Hence fearless. Proudly displaying their colours. Disdainfully ignoring the visitors.

The beautiful young girl. Suitors aplenty. The world at her feet. Spoilt by rich doting parents, showing her off in her finery. Only the moneyed were allowed to woo her.


The Greenhouse in which it flourished. The eggs clinging to the underside of the leaves. The  translucent shimmery pupa from which emerged the young.


The Palace to which she arrived a radiant bride. The beauteous offspring she bore her doting husband. The world was her oyster as she went from strength to strength.


Secure within the walls of the lovely garden it flew, shielded from predators, surrounded by its own progeny. A sylvan serene existance. Storms or upheavals never darkened its doorstep. Cuccooned in its world, it lived and flied albeit within the walls.


The palace came alive as she flourished in it. Her world consisted and was defined by her loved ones. All that she wanted was within its walls, her existance sheltered, all who new her protected her fiercely. Her slightest wish  their command.


Time flew. Age dared to do what none else had. The butterfly flew but wearily. Mostly it rested on the underside of the leaves. Flew no more. Sacrilige it seemed that now it was displayed on the board within the museum, its wings stretched out, its vulnerability scrutinised by awestruck  visitors.


The dowager was  ailing. Still the darling of the occupants of the palace, but confided to her room. Her every need attended to by loving aides. The body was lifeless, but even in death her lustrous hair and fragile body brought tears to the eyes of her family. Her portrait on the walls of the landing would catch many an eye, bring many a sigh to admiring visitors.


The pleasure of pain, the agony of ecstasy, the journey of their lives a tapestry pretty, but unsoiled.
Life ? Had merely fluttered by.

1 comment:

  1. like the combinations of words you use..splendid..so many different tales in such short pieces..

    ReplyDelete