Butterfly
Here am I — a butterfly
whirling-twirling in the air!
Hear my voice, I rejoice
all summer long without a care.
From the moon to the sun,
in youthful fun,
I fly.
From the earth, from the dearth
of loving warmth
I rise.
A song I sing, a happy song:
the air is filled with sincere feeling;
I flash my wings and fly along,
calling all to heaven’s ceiling.
Holy station, sweet sensation
pure temptation,
rules me.
What brilliancy! What harmony!
I dance towards
infinity!
A child of light,
my wings are bright,
and in my flight
I flit and flirt;
while breathing free
and wondrously,
I sing and string out
reams of verse!
Inhaling smells
I carousel
and seek to woo
a fair companion.
O she refuses;
my ego, bruises—
But no excuses!
I must abandon.
So onward I travel
and aimless I wend;
hurtle and straggle
through rivers of clouds.
Nature unravels—
no limit nor end:
No love for the gravel
of earth I pretend!
Beneath me there lies a world overrun
with envy, injustice and pain;
a life from torture and nightmare sprung—
How I strove to break free from my chains!
Tormented was I by cruel offence;
my innocence, defiled.
Then came the day I saw my chance—
I took to azure skies.
Here, there,
everywhere,
the happy sun is laughing;
while brightly, spritely,
oh-so-lightly,
through peaceful skies I’m passing!
I am a little butterfly,
my mood is ever-changing;
no sooner do I vilify
than praise am I declaiming.
I flutter and laugh immensely
as I cycle through my colors,
and live my life intensely
the length of one whole summer.
“To the sun, to the sun!” Mother Nature calls;
“To the sun, to the sun!” I answer, rising higher...
And in a spot of solar bliss I stall
to take my spot within the cosmic choir;
while down below me lies that yawning maw
where once I crawled upon my hands and knees
beneath the raspy nasal-sounding caw
of Death, who always sought to prey on me.
Frost and ice—O unexpected drop!
Monsters, uncanny monsters who look like men;
eruptions of pus from towering rocks,
and musty vomit flowing without end.
No, I am not sad to trade such things below
for freedom won in skyward flight;
so fluttering on from cloud to cloud I go,
towards the sun with all my might.
I used to have a flower, a lovely rose,
the only place I knew repose
when darkness fell.
Often did I visit my beloved flower,
and bore my heart to her...
But earth is hell...
One day I flew to her... My rose was lost—
The wind, cruel thing, had carried her off,
and over me darkness fell.
I never expected
my flower to die.
My heart lamented
for days of old.
In the alienation
of grief lay I,
with no consolation
in my soul.
Then sunlight spilled,
a nightingale trilled
and all of my tears took flight.
Yet my heart still burned,
for the rose it yearned,
and I wept for love’s first light.
No, I am not sad to leave the earth behind—
(Can anyone live without their friends?)
In pursuit of happiness I’ve taken to the sky.
Who knows, perhaps I’ll find it in the end.
So I bid thee farewell, my creeping, crawling brothers—
I must be away—let there be no enmity!
The blue sky is calling me as if it were my lover,
to at last breathe free in pure serenity.
A butterfly am I,
a little child of light.
The sun I recognize
and praise it in my flight:
“You and only you
are love and truth indeed—
poetry and youth
now and forever free!”
Kharkiv, 10 April 1919
Written by Eŭgeno Miĥalski | Translation by Adam Kuplowsky
‘Papilio,’ Prologo, 1929
Eŭgeno Miĥalski (1897-1937): Ukrainian teacher and librarian. An experimenter with the semantic possibilities of Esperanto, he is said to have raised the quality of poetry in the language. A founding member of the Internacia Asocio de Revoluciaj Esperanto-Verkistoj (International Association of Revolutionary Esperanto Writers), he was executed in 1937, likely for his extensive foreign correspondence with Esperantists.