A Butterfly’s Advice and Other Poems

by Grace Shaw

A Butterfly’s Advice

 

When I learned to fly, I did not imagine

a case around my unmaking.

My elders made it seem simple

as instinct, but believe me:

 

Living is an imprecise and vivid science.

Learn it. It will

hurt but be worth your time

to remember surrender

will feel like an orange peel

ripped off the body.

 

You, earth bird, are

not a fox or a kite. The pending

dissolution of you in darkness

means this chrysalis

is no den. You will not

float on wind pinned to a hand

by some long, taught string.

That is not flying.

 

Rest, rather, as an acorn—

a thing bound

now in the shell of itself,

yet somehow already

for its wings.

 

 

Florist Blessing

 

May each morning afford you

leisure to rearrange

the way you twist the base

of a half-finished bouquet.

 

May your days be plenty

and simple—familiar as the buds

of a hundred, pearly snapdragons.

 

May there come from every bucket

a tulip just tall enough.

 

May the perfect snips for the stems

you are holding find your hand.

 

May the unshapely, rubber-banded

bundles of your mind

soon sink, neatly stripped,

into their vases.

 

Let your joys shed their shells

like poppies, revealing

ever-brighter centers.

 

Set regrets aside like extras:

broken, but not too short

for everything.

 

May summer color you,

autumn soften you,

winter limit you,

and every spring

bring something back to you,

 

like a farmer’s hatchback

full of forsythia whispering, Life, this life,

is a resurrecting thing.

 

 

Psalm 23

 

Bring me quiet

like the hum

among organ chords.

Like dust above

church pews,

suspend me in light.

Tend me

like shrubbery,

rinse me, then

wade me down

in living rivers.

Don’t allow me

to waver long

inside my fissures.

Break me like morning

over mountains. Pour

your silver glory

to solder me.

Set time like a table.

Adorn every day

with a place to lay

a little more of me,

like gold leaf,

on your royal molding.

Grace Shaw is an emerging poet with work appearing in journals at the intersection of faith and art including Fathom Magazine and Reformed Journal. Her poem “Say it Like Flowers” recently won the Audience Choice Award in the Bright Wings Poetry Contest 2022 (presented by Ekstasis Magazine and the Makers and Mystics podcast). Having earned her MFA from Seattle Pacific University, she now lives, works, and enjoys the plentiful symmetry of succulents in Los Angeles, California. Visit her work at graceshawpoetry | Instagram | Linktree and @graceshawpoetry on Instagram.



Previous
Previous

New Chronology

Next
Next

The Artist