Returning, always returning to the single summer plant in the world. You must understand they are rare in this city now, these creatures of a single season whom I always think ofīecause of the one butterfly on my solitary bush as one immortal,Īppearing disappearing with the golden seasons,

It has a unique fragrance given to the air from an inconspicuous yellow flowerīut I cherish it each spring and watch less for itself perhaps than becauseĪ beautiful swallowtail butterfly comes from far off to sip at the blossoms. It may be from the Andes or Tibet or some other less notable place. There is a sweet-smelling bush in the front yard, nameless Ī man now dead, one of those green-thumb people who know strange plants with which esoteric nurseries like the world are stocked

So, that’s what this poem The Last Butterfly means to me. And I chose The Last Butterfly from his collection Notes of an Alchemist because it just reminded me that there are some certainties in the world even when we’re dealing with unfathomable change in our lives that the earth and the seasons will continue on. But I’m not, so I turn to the late Loren Eiseley, who is one of the very wonderful, beautiful literary scientists. I turn to poetry I think because of its effect as distillation about really what I’ve learned from this last difficult year what’s really important and where you can find solace. And I realized what I was missing most was spontaneity. RH: I was walking in the woods near my home seeking solace in nature in this really difficult time when it felt like the world was really narrowing down. In this week’s Poetry Friday segment, Rose Houk, a writer for KNAU’s Earth Notes series, shares her thoughts on the healing power of the natural world, as well as a poem by the late American anthropologist and nature science writer Loren Eiseley. Many people turn to nature for solace in times of trouble, and living on the Colorado Plateau, we are fortunate to have an abundance of open space to do just that. It goes without saying that 2020 has been a tough year filled with a lot of uncertainty.

Loren eiseley poems