Crimson Butterflies (Dedicated to Tony Scott and two butterflies outside my porch)

How can you not wonder about
Creation and its null when you
See a pair of crimson butterflies
Engaged in mating games around a
Stained newspaper lying on the
Asphalt reporting another creator's
End?

The temerity of this process amazes me-
The balance and the disbalance of things.
One life below the bridge and another
On red velvety wings- But, just for a day.
No grand theory can compensate and satisfy
This reprise and refrain- the process.

While a pair perseveres to chisel and shape
A pupa and a chrysalis, a creator and master
Of things decides to end the game.They Exist
On two completely different plains, they create
With different notions- while the purpose is the same.

One leaves their legacy on a tree while the other
On the psyche and collective memory. Is the former
Then any smaller than the latter? Is one day's life any
Lesser than the span of a thousand stimuli aroused
On a celluloid?

Or should the chrysalis reach fruition to
Inspire grander creations such as the creator's?
Is it more apt that the creation stays and the
Creators leave? The butterfly cannot wet its
Wings nor can the creator fly... Its death.

Is this how they balance each other mutually
Unbeknownst? Then does life live for life's
Sake and art for art's and so on? Or do the
Creators embrace death to perpetuate life?

The crimson tide of the murky waters were
Probably conquered by him with fire, who like
Prometheus guarded it for other creators to use,
To yield in and to never be cold.

Rest well. For you and the butterfly are all but one
And maybe it bodes well that you walked not knowing
Its pupa or it your images

For with time, lives like these leave a mark that
The balance cannot erase; it doesnt dare to!

Dear Icarus and Prometheus- sleep well


© Malyaban Lahiri