An eastern sage could not recall
If he was man, mayhap, or butterfly.
I know I am a man. I know because
I’m but a bug.
…She is not so much like a butterfly at all:
Butterflies are pretty, with eye-spotted wings.
Her eyes are in her head. Her head is in the heavens.
And her feet – they stalk the clouds.
If I were a butterfly I might dance upon the air –
The ball-room of the billows that the blowing wind arrays –
And dance in happy unison the trail her feet have traced.
Only… If I were a butterfly, I could not have dreamt
That way she smiles at everything.
Though you gave me age on age, like great and turning wheels –
Birth and rebirth, worlds without end –
Still, not all the stars a brain could have invented
That ruddy halo of her hair.
And by this too I know she is no dream:
That though I move through fretful dreams and dark
And wander in the daylight sun a somniac
She called my name under a cloudy sky
Just as the first rain fell; and I could tell
The rays of dawn and birdsong in her stare.