It’s the season for Cabbage Whites! I’ve written about them before, and posted several poems. Mary doesn’t name these as Cabbage Whites, but I’m assuming. It doesn’t matter; the delightful thing is that she describes the essential “delicate in a hurry” nature of them, such that one wonders if they will ever stop and drink. Of course they eventually do, and I can get a decent picture of them then; but it’s the lobbing and banging I can never capture, so I’m glad Mary has done it, in rhythm and words.
SEVEN WHITE BUTTERFLIES
Seven white butterflies
delicate in a hurry look
how they bang the pages
…….of their wings as they fly
to the fields of mustard yellow
and orange and plain
gold all eternity
…….is in the moment this is what
Blake said Whitman said such
wisdom in the agitated
motions of the mind seven
…….dancers floating
even as worms toward
paradise see how they banter
and riot and rise
…….to the trees flutter
lob their white bodies into
the invisible wind weightless
lacy willing
…….to deliver themselves unto
the universe now each settles
down on a yellow thumb on a
brassy stem now
…….all seven are rapidly sipping
from the golden tower who
would have thought it could be so easy?
-Mary Oliver
Gladsome Lights 
The last time I was at the Brazoria refuge, there were seemingly hundreds of these in the air, and “in the air” is the operative phrase! I tried and tried, and never once found on perching for more than two seconds. “Rioting and rising” describes it perfectly.
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So interesting – your post and shoreacres comment. Daisy and I were excited this morning to see a large butterfly sipping at my hanging plant. A swallowtail.
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Beautiful. I love Mary Oliver დ
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Mary Oliver said it so beautifully. I wish I had her way with words.
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I don’t think I’ve ever tried to read a Mary Oliver poem that I found quite so awkward. But Cabbage Butterflies I have lots of and they do “banter and riot”.
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This poem has an « awkward » rhythm as it mimics the way trying to follow a cabbage white yanks our eyes and attention every which way.
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I love these dainty butterflies!
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