Noticing The Wounded Butterfly Poem by Linda Marie Van Tassell

Did you capture the curve of her subdued smile,
her kind demeanor, whisper soft and simple,
the way she enchants with the sweetest beguile
with the sister smile of a charming dimple?
Did you notice how fair her porcelain skin,
the blue-sky windows in the orbs of her eyes,
how fragile she seems, so incredibly thin,
with her heart on her sleeve, both wondrous and wise?

Did you hear lament in the back of her laugh
like a summer rain in the penchant of June
whose echoes resound like pitiless chaff
or night without the light of a starry moon?
Did you see how she blushed with nothing to say
when you asked her if she had weathered the storm,
how she shed a tear and then wiped it away
for rising alone is her standard and norm?

Did you notice how she embraced the quiet,
hugging herself as she walked along the beach
running from her shadow, though she'd deny it?
She rises even higher, just beyond reach.
Did you see the sun as it danced in her hair,
encircling her body with a golden glow;
how she held a flower with the gentlest care
whose petals were speckles of snowiest snow?

Did you know that she is untouchably strong
and irreducible in so many ways?
She is spirit of sapphire skies and green song,
the pulse of a lifetime is penned in her days.
I watch her reaching across portals of time,
beauty spun into words and words into wing.
Page after page, she is exalted in rhyme.
A wounded butterfly is a lovely thing.