Rilke's Beau Papillon

Culture is slow, destruction can be instantaneous. For years I have been trying to capture in English something of the rapidity and delicacy of Rilke's poem on the beautiful butterfly and two texts that cannot be read--the characters on the butterfly's wings and a love letter torn to shreds. My poem is perhaps less a translation than an approach, a homage, to his poem.

Beau papillon
After Rainer Maria Rilke

A butterfly near the ground
lets attentive nature look
at the illuminated letters
in its flight book. 

Another folds its wings
on the flower I breathe--
now’s not the time to read.
Many others are flying:

the azures scatter,
floating and fluttering
like scraps of blue paper
from a love letter in the wind,

the letter torn to shreds
that I was writing for
my beloved as she stood,
hesitating, at my door.