My Butterfly Hunter

It's not really the season for butterfly hunting
but I can't say no to such a hopeful face
battered makeshift old net in one hand
large jam jar with perforated lid in the other
a huge confident grin spurs me into action
searching for my old scrappy shoes and hat

Three year olds don't do silence do they
and so a constant stream of chatter ensues
which secret passageway shall we take today
from the kitchen out back to the garden gate
or shall we split and meet by the greenhouse
these things are important in his small world

We decide on the westerly route for this trip
I am keen to instill some sense of direction
a knowledge of the compass points at least
having intrinsically almost no sense of my own
marking by landmarks the trail back home
pointing out the unusual to act as reminders

We skip along the path by newly bare fields
the harvest already in, leaving golden stubble
but along the edges still long tall grasses grow
and it is to the edge that we head net in hand
I am hoping for grasshoppers or maybe a cricket
some small compensation for my butterfly hunter

Can you concentrate like a young child can
his small body so still and yet also so poised
there is gracefulness in children in motion
but there is even more in a child ready to pounce
my small hunter is quiet as only he knows how
stage whispering his progress through the grass

No butterflies to be had or even to be seen
grasshoppers elusive though heard time and again
finally thirst drives us homewards empty-handed
when the chatter turns to where we come from
how does one explain the birds and the bees
to someone already so knowledgeable at three

I needn't have worried for the answer came from him
he comes from the sun, I apparently from the moon
his brother and sister from the clouds or maybe
from the sun like him, mummy and daddy from the sky
granny and gramps from the ocean definitely not the sea
and did I know what happens when we grow up?

Well I was intrigued to learn more as you can imagine
it seems we become grown-ups, then wolves, then tigers
and finally after we've lived in the jungle for many years
we get to go to live in the sky high up above the night
so we can see the sun and the moon at the same time
and that is how it is in the mind of my butterfly hunter.

9 comments:

  1. free uncomplicated curiosity!

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  2. I love this... this is gorgeous and inspiring and made me nostalgic for being both a child and a parent...if that makes any sense at all.

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  3. So sweet. I want to sit with a child again and listen to their take on life, which is often dead on. All I get now is teenage runaround...surface talk to hide the truth that mom can't handle, or so they think.

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  4. Oh, frikk, how beautiful! Yes, to see the sun and moon at once. to be able to transcend all the boundaries placed by human ways. Thank you for this sweet offering. ~rick

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  5. Oh sweet Jos, I needed this so badly.

    I feel lifted up.

    Thank you dear heart and give the little three year old a kiss on the cheek.

    Love Renee xoxo

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  6. I am glad that you are back dear one.

    Love Renee xoo

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  7. oh.my.god, j. This is beautiful. Holy holy. Quiet and purposeful and beautiful. A philosophy that I would be pleased to worship at. You. You wrote this piece of beauty. I'm sure the living of it was perfection but it is no easy task to write it as such but you did and I believe you did it effortlessly.

    thank you
    beautiful way to start my day
    xo
    erin

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  8. I love how the story enfolds and the thoughts such provokes with your words. Yes, I am liking this; you.

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  9. no. you are right. It is the same. It is.

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