Evening At the river’s muddied margin against leather-brown silt, something glows, petal-white. A forager, gathering ghost light, I tiptoe like a wader, toward the shine. Mottled butterfly wings, thinner than psalms on bible pages. I bow down in reverence. They are muted, sheer as eyelids. Tenderly, as a philatelist handling their rarest possession, I lift and place them within my notebook bindings, press their fading into blankness, then turn watch the water’s benevolent violence gradually bruise violet.
Richard Biddle
20