emergency preparedness.

each morning
i enter the library

first
into the glass airlock
through double doors
that help you push them
open, pause at their widest
collapse emphatically
resisting interruption
if your rhythm is wrong

then
the second double doors
inert and flimsy, no will
in the shadow of
the first.

then
hip high metal flippers
make me a pinball
ricocheting right
across the reading room
through clicking wooden door
into invisible library parts still quiet
when the phones stop ringing.

tuesday
in the airlock
a tiger swallowtail still
on the flat flush floor
sill of plate glass
surveying brick
behind a tree in a pot
beside a cardboard death trap

how do i see these things?
why must i notice
the hatchling in the leaves
the beetle struggling beneath bananas
the steel blue feather in the grass
the abyss in the eyes of strangers?

i walk alone, quiet, and look
i see more than most
i think
yet
i can’t fathom all the wonders
i do not see
despite looking

sometimes
i try to keep walking
leave the feather on the ground
do not carry the cicada
from the brick walk to the tree
do not tuck another fallen leaf
between the leaves of your calendar
but it is painful not to stop
not to treasure
not to honor
not to try

before
i make it to my desk
i know i will
drop my bags
power on the computer
turn around
out the clacking door
across the reading room
between the scanning sentinels
out the flat doors
into the violent heat

then
around around and back
airlock again
rustle behind the potted trees
the circulation desk
must think i’m touched

but
i touch you
tentative
your wing flaps up
and i had imagined
you were probably dead

so
careful careful
must get you outside
careful, touch thorax
touch abdomen
careful, touch not your wings

through flimsy doors
through flippers
ricochet left
wondering
at your strength in my hand
your wings slowly beat
why we walk around in circles
locks and one way doors

careful careful
please do not fly
not in the library
it houses a different kind of life
another kind of beauty

careful careful
just a moment more

see
i’m frightened
of trying to help
scared
i might instead harm

careful
through the flat doors
outside
where you belong
swallowtail, meet shrub

but
something
is wrong and sticky
your hindlegs tangled
in what might
or might not
be cobwebs

i pull the tacky mass
gentle
but my body betrays me
the more i need precision
the more
my heart pounds
my hands shake

hopeful i am not hurting you
afraid to pull the cobwebby clump

(can you even imagine
tearing the legs from a butterfly?

i can imagine why i have been
finding cicadas crushed
into concrete or brick
campus is full of students
now

and
i hope
but doubt
their steps
are accidents)

your wings beat faster
when i pull
do i project your fear?
pain?
your insect wild
need to flee?
i can’t hold you
can’t pull harder
you take flight

first
you struggle
so do i
apprehending the possibility
of watching you fall

then
you find
your rhythm

now
ascending black
against clear hot sky
ropy burden dangling behind

now
all that exists is you
flitting up
up higher
high into the blue
higher than i knew
even unburdened
papillons could fly

then
you are gone
behind roof line
out of sight

i am shaken
shaking i failed to save you
released you into danger
with a sticky weight
a mark upon you
dragging you down to
certain and soon
death

again
through the willful doors
the airlock, flimsy doors, flippers
fighting disappointment
fear of tears
or moistness of eyes
of people saying
once again
too sensitive, silly
crying over butterflies
or birds hit by cars
everything dies

but
taking flight
is freedom
is hope
spying a startled bird
alighting directly into steel destruction
is perverse

a butterfly
climbing
up and away
towing its sticky demise:
the same

like this
to office, to cube
to work, to meeting
to prepare
for disaster

emergency comes in flavors:
fire
wind
buildings collapsing to earth
security
which means a human with a gun
or two or four

amid this
listening, talking
planning, debate
subsides
the ache in my chest
behind my eyes

later
the sadness finds me again
and i wonder
why is it
contingencies of human evil
distract from the centered ache
and
what it means
that this is so
and
how many ways exist
of being a traitor
to your own kind

* I haven’t claimed to be a poet in over 13 years, but some things just want to come out in fragments and images and this is one of them. An unpolished unrevised ramble.