Everyday Nature: Parable in the Flower Garden by Alessandra Simmons

You have to be in a pretty bad mood to maintain it while harvesting flowers on a breezy Wednesday morning. Luckily, I had thoughts of the global pandemic weighing on me and a shouty toddler punching the flowers as I tried to cut them, so I was able to retain my gloomy disposition quite well. Even as monarchs flitted from the pink and purple scabiosa daisies to coneflowers. Even as the fresh-faced sunflowers smiled at me. Even when the toddler started to pick at weeds and sing lullabies to himself for a brief interlude between his big unnamable emotions. 

What finally startled me out of myself was a white admiral butterfly flying — hither and thither — with just one and a half wings. Her right wing was completely missing the lower half. And yet, just like the brightly colored monarchs and work-minded honey bees buzzing about, she went about her business unfazed by her missing part. Both the physics of it and the clear lesson about perseverance were a marvel to me. But there was something more to it, something that in the moment, I couldn’t name.

The flowers needed cutting and the toddler needed soothing so I carried on about my own business with my buckets and clippers, singing the “Wheels on the bus go round and round.”

Throughout the day I continued to contemplate the fraction of a butterfly I witnessed in the flower garden. I remembered the poem “Zacuanpapalotls” by Milwaukee poet Brenda Cárdenas and re-read it. Poetry has the ability to put words and images to what is ineffable and this poem was able to come closer to naming what I felt as I watched the white admiral butterfly. The last stanza of the poem reads: 

We are—

one life passing through the prism

of all others, gathering color and song,

cempazuchil and drum

to leave a rhythm scattered on the wind,

dust tinting the tips of fingers

as we slip into our new light.

The poem draws awareness to what we normally resist noticing — the power of our interconnected lives. How my life passed through the white admiral butterfly’s and her life passed through mine and we were both changed. She was able to lift out of my sullenness because she was able to explain it to me. With her help, I understood that I feel bits of myself missing in the day to day of this enduring pandemic — with loved ones so far away carrying on, getting married, being born and dying, with so much tumult, disparity, and distrust revealed by the hardship across the nation, and yet, like this butterfly, we can slip into new light. We can resist the darkness. As the pandemic wears on and we continue to greet friends and strangers from safe distances and from behind masks, may we still gather color and song. 

Columnist Alessandra Simmons is a poet and gardener. She's inspired by the beauty of nature every day and loves to learn about its intricacies. If you have a photo or question to share about Washington Island's great outdoors, send it to editor@washingtonislandobserver.com.

“Everyday Nature” is sponsored by the Washington Island Art and Nature Center. The Art and Nature Center is dedicated to the promotion, preservation and understanding of the creative arts and natural history of Washington Island.