“From the age of seven, everything I felt in connection with a rectangle of framed sunlight was dominated by a single passion. ~ Vladimir Nabokov ~ “Speak, memory”
There's a chink in the shutter and once more the door of the past flies open. Like the pretty captive insect it only needs a chink to emerge A boy full of summers pushing up through the flowers daylight packed with endless hours the softest sound of butterfly nets Such a desperation of desire they lit. I lay each down, pinned to gaze and gaze upon. Entombed. Dazzling motionless wings Every daedal design I took to heart. In quiet intimacy of muffled deaths - then immortality. I recall them all by name There's that chink in the shutter the door to the skies invites detached from this bed, I'm taking flight - "a certain butterfly is already on the wing"*
*the famous last words of Vladimir Nabokov.
For my poetics prompt “Words of departure” we are creating a deathbed poem using some famous last words and imagining the scene or creating an imaginary one to match. Nabokov was an avid butterfly collector.
PoetryPix 