"let butterflies know magic" and other work by Linda Crate
let butterflies know magic
there was something
urgent in the beating of those
massive butterfly wings
that called me to save it from the
spider's web,
and i think there' something
beautiful about not only being able
to make oneself heard against all the
noise of the world but being able to listen
and know the urgency of a soul aching
to be heard;
and i freed that butterfly without remorse—'
because while there's a beauty that
remains after death,
i felt that could wait for another night;
let the butterfly know magic as they've always
given me magic.
even after death
i saw a deer skull in
the field filled with
three leaf clovers,
life after death;
new breath in old
bones—
they said dead men
don't talk,
but sometimes i think
perhaps we just don't know
how to properly listen;
there's many things
we don't know—
all i know is there is beauty
in everything, even after
death.
Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has twelve published chapbooks the latest being: Searching Stained Glass Windows For An Answer (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2022). She is also the author of the novella Mates (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2022). Her debut book of photography Songs of the Creek (Alien Buddha Publishing, April 2023) was recently published.