A Poem by Rick Hartwell

Reclamation Project

I watch antics reminiscent of adolescence,
gold butterflies in wanton flight,
wandering from bud to bloom to blossom,
to voyage again sans duplication.

Seemingly random, indiscriminant soaring
without filing a flight plan
appears appropriate for fragile butterflies,
then why not for me?

Although no longer randomly pubescent,
we are alike, butterflies and I,
not flitting nor wandering, past flourishing,
but with life comprehended

Tired and tattered wings signal our lives
near spent, cycles completed;
slowed by exhaustion, yet fulfilled, we too,
flutter finally down to earth.

Such is the way and the path and the plan,
all remains to be recycled, any
butterfly remorse or personal repentance
overcome by newly freed spirits.



Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school English teacher living in Southern California.  He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity.  Given his druthers, if he's not writing, Rick would rather still be tailing plywood in a mill in Oregon.  He can be reached at rdhartwell@gmail.com