Sunday Best

Today my garden turned into Butterfly World
as if all wings had overnight unfurled to show
their colours: small white, comma, tortoiseshell;
the air grows warm, the hedges swell and glow.

Pursuing wings, with camera in my hand,
I find an insect, dressed as if
a cranefly - in its Sunday Best.
Dangling legs and all that I abhor, in vivid orange,
now give me delight. I want a name for this
- no daddy-long-legs fright. But, wait - a nest

up in the roof's high gable suddenly sings
and chatters as the parent swallow dives
away, then rises in its search for more fresh food:
not all winged creatures live such happy lives.

poem © Celia Warren 2013