Poetry Saturday: "Blue-Butterfly Day"

by Jason Wojciechowski

Welcome to Poetry Saturday. The blogfathers have, for some reason, given me editing privileges here on The Platoon Advantage. I have managed to restrain myself for a time, but here, I take advantage.

Courtesy of the eMule.com Poetry Archives's "Random Poem" button:

Blue-Butterfly Day
by Robert Frost

It is blue-butterfly day here in spring,
And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry
There is more unmixed color on the wing
Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry.

But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.

You might think that eMule chose this in a fit of irony -- this is fall, not spring. The days are growing shorter and colder. We're arguing over playoff rosters, not who the last man on the 40-man should be and whether that Rule 5 pick should sit out in the bullpen.

But the Rangers and Rays are on TV as I write this, and while the stands in Arlington aren't unmixed -- there appears to be red, white, and blue in approximately equal proportions -- for sheer quantity, surely no flower (or regular-season baseball game) could compete. The more melancholy second stanza reflects the eventual fate of all but the luckiest of fans -- they will fly and sing and display their colors as long as they can, but eventually they'll go home unhappy as their teams are eliminated.