Butterfly Sea

to the sea of need
one can only at last offer hope

and hope consists
of the seeming futility of offering up beauty
to the gaping want-hole of wounds so deep
to offer always the butterfly
to the boy soldier in Flanders
for so many over-fought inches

to offer him the rose of Spring he remembers amid blasts

to lift him briefly
to lift him always from the trenches
with a sea of butterflies

Amy Jackson
© June 25, 2006

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