Congratulations on this wonderful collaboration with Eduard de Boer from a few years back. It's a really fine achievement, and very moving also! It's great that you have included the video of the concert. Thanks for doing that. It just confirms what I have always known: 'You always write very musical poetry, regardless of how happy or truly tragic it may be.
A lovely and delicate display of human disaster and ruin, unbearable loss and emotional cremation, somehow held together by one on the most brilliant lines in all of Poetry, "Where does the butterfly go?"
From divorce to war, they're always the prime and undeserving victims. I believe the 5 "butterfly" words came from the spirit, not the mind. Ironically, I'm helping a lady with her first book entitled, "Butterflies of Grace."
That's an interesting synchronicity. I wrote my butterfly poem when a woman I dated briefly committed suicide. Later, I dedicated it to the children of Gaza and their mothers.
I'm not particularly enamored of butterflies, but the way the placid, harmless butterfly is juxtaposed against the horror that only mankind is capable of creating is literary genius.
Congratulations on this wonderful collaboration with Eduard de Boer from a few years back. It's a really fine achievement, and very moving also! It's great that you have included the video of the concert. Thanks for doing that. It just confirms what I have always known: 'You always write very musical poetry, regardless of how happy or truly tragic it may be.
I'm still hoping someone will come up with the money so Ed can turn "The Children of Gaza" into an opera.
Oh, it would be so good, and so relevant now. I really hope that happens.
A lovely and delicate display of human disaster and ruin, unbearable loss and emotional cremation, somehow held together by one on the most brilliant lines in all of Poetry, "Where does the butterfly go?"
It did seem like an apt metaphor. So sad and vexing that it has to be used for children.
From divorce to war, they're always the prime and undeserving victims. I believe the 5 "butterfly" words came from the spirit, not the mind. Ironically, I'm helping a lady with her first book entitled, "Butterflies of Grace."
That's an interesting synchronicity. I wrote my butterfly poem when a woman I dated briefly committed suicide. Later, I dedicated it to the children of Gaza and their mothers.
Hmmm...To continue the story, all three of this woman's children died of drug overdoses, which is essentially suicide.
Such a tragedy. The author is welcome to use my poem if she cares to. I have some other butterfly poems and translations...
Ah butterfly,
what dreams do you ply
with your beautiful wings?
—Fukuda Chiyo-ni, translation by Michael R. Burch
***
Also a poet arranging words
with its airy wings—
the butterfly.
—Fukuda Chiyo-ni, translation by Michael R. Burch
***
The butterfly tip-toes at ebb-tide
—Fukuda Chiyo-ni, translation by Michael R. Burch
***
Along her path
butterflies flit,
front and back
—Fukuda Chiyo-ni, translation by Michael R. Burch
***
How lowly this valley,
how lofty the butterfly's flight!
—Hisajo Sugita, translation by Michael R. Burch
***
Come, butterfly,
it’s late
and we’ve a long way to go!
—Basho, translation by Michael R. Burch
***
A fallen blossom
returning to its bough?
No, a butterfly!
—Arakida Moritake, translation by Michael R. Burch
***
As autumn deepens,
a butterfly sips
chrysanthemum dew.
—Basho, translation by Michael R. Burch
***
The butterfly
perfuming its wings
fans the orchid
—Basho, translation by Michael R. Burch
***
On the temple’s great bronze gong
a butterfly
snoozes.
—Yosa Buson, translation by Michael R. Burch
***
Hard to describe:
this light sensation of being pinched
by a butterfly!
—Yosa Buson, translation by Michael R. Burch
***
Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly:
a puff of white snow
cresting mountains
—Kakio Tomizawa, translation by Michael R. Burch
***
The white poppy
accepts the butterfly's broken wing
as a keepsake
—Basho, translation by Michael R. Burch
***
It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence ...
***
Your love is as delicate
as a butterfly cleaning its wings,
as soft as the predicate
the hummingbird sings
to itself, gently murmuring—
“Fly! Fly! Fly!”
Your love is the string
soaring kites untie.
***
Monarch
by Michael R. Burch
I had a little caterpillar,
it wove a cocoon for its villa.
When I blinked an eye
what did I espy?
It flew off, a regal butterfly!
***
Dry leaf flung awry:
bright butterfly,
goodbye!
—Michael R. Burch
I'm not particularly enamored of butterflies, but the way the placid, harmless butterfly is juxtaposed against the horror that only mankind is capable of creating is literary genius.