Butterfly Poem by Alexei Purin

‘Where is the Grace of God?' It lives amongst
Nymphalis Antiopa, wings closed like a book.
It's in your palm, you rub the coloured dust
of everyday anxieties. Just look:
it's unalive like lace (don't say it's ‘dead'),
it's just the muted fright of a distant space,
where fragile words are woven thread by thread,
into the interlacement of the Word. Embrace

and tune into the animated sadness of these wings,
papyrus that's reciting it forever:
‘A caterpillar-chrysalis-the final dream,
the image that was lingering', and ever
I see a temple of the future life
as if it was written out by a Grace:
it's not a lingam, or a spire like a knife -
a butterfly with wings of coloured lace.