BUTTERFLY'S FLIGHT.... Michael Brown

BUTTERFLY’S FLIGHT

-For Jen

There it is, almost on cue

Scratching a flight path  

Like an angry signature

It’s former self discarded

It’s tissued-wings beating 

Like my heart

When thoughts of you 

Will not settle 

When I unpick stitches between us

Let roam the predators

Through the turnstiles of chaos 

Until, almost on cue 

The garden sings it’s lullaby

In blades and shades of green 

Every note sidling-up

Lingering after-touch 

Easing the butterfly’s flight

To the buddleia, where it settles

It’s wings lightly pressed together 

Like a pair of hands in pray

81. Kit Kelen's 'in the dell' -- inviting Debbie Lim into the garden

 

in the dell

 

wilted summer where

 

leaf and landing

twig, whiff

 

and damp

with which falls were

 

it’s puddle to a pond

when rain has had its days

 

shelter in the daylight

 

trod grass

with lemon

and another

 

just breathe in

let the eyes breathe

 

in days of creek

the dell gush

a week beyond still

singing high

 

music is made of wings there

 

all of a world is edge to dell

 

every word spoken led

 

that’s where the green is brightest

that’s where your bird sings

80. Catherin J Pascal Dunk's "forlorn", inviting Catia Castrucci with flowers

forlorn

forlorn, like those dead roses Coles
daren’t discount.

forlorn. the very word is like a bell.¹
a wandering
between worlds.²

Photo by Catherin J Pascal Dunk 2025.

1. The second stanza is cento-esque. This line is from John Keats' Ode to a Nightingale (1820, stanza 8):
   
   Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
            To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
    ↩︎
2. I'm referring here to Matthew Arnold's Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse (1855, lines 82/83):
   
   Wandering between two worlds, one dead
   one powerless to be born.
   
   Line 85 includes the word 'forlorn'.  

79. Mimmalisa's 'Escape' invites Neen Ramos to the Garden

 

Escape 

from the frantic pace

family friction

pressure to perform

freedom from festivities

I plonk myself

on the edge of clarity

the coursing creek converses

with exuberant birds in the distance

the wind awakens the gums

the leaves sway in response

passersby oblivious to the call

a moment held

within the trunks

limbs suspended over passing time

curved up towards the sun

blue sky ahead

grey heron lands

near the makeshift basalt bridge

of stepping stones

Heading to the South

the water continues to the bay

its persistent motion

defined by obstacles in its path

snaking its way down and around

through this small stretch

slap bang in the middle 

of inner west Melbourne

78. Catherin J Pascal Dunk's "The Most Beloved", inviting Shruti Khrishna Sareen to write in the garden

I envisage a moment
in which your Goddess
meets mine.

They are crossing Talkatora Gardens,
one from each side,
along shaded walks.

High noon swelters.
At fifteen paces, they lock eyes.
Each Goddess tilts her chin.

My Goddess sports a glowing crown
of white Thai orchids; pitch-black lingerie.
Your Goddess—

77. Housesitting for Jake Dennis

 

Housesitting 

I step outside barefoot.

Before sunrise.

The grass is wet from the night, 

cool blades pressing my skin

I breath deeper. 

Tomorrow I'm back home

to thirty square metres.

no grass. 

I close my eyes. 

The smell, sharp,

cut grass,

pulls me back

to childhood lawns,

full of bindeyes,

before fences.

I walk slowly

counting every step

toward the lake.

The sun shows off.

A baby kookaburra 

practices laughing.

I stay. 

76. Smoke is the garden (after Tamar Yoseloff) for Davina Verey

 

75. Tu me manques ici (by Catherin J Pascal Dunk)

 For Jessica Perini, inviting her to the Garden

You’re present
in my yarden—
in the Egyptian-walking-garlic
raised beds;
in the overblown bug-heaven
buddleia.

Tu me manques ici
where you can never
be; but we’re twined in plants,
in the random
stabs of cuttings, in
never missing

that moment to plant
a seed that may unfurl
in wild, fruitful ways.
In the teddy-bear sunflower,
in bee-bound borage,
in Coriandrum gargantuum.

74. Pam Rachootin's Garden Haiku Series for Cathy Stirling

Garden Haiku Series

 

Crappy soil reigns

With tree root competition

It's hard as concrete.

 

I tried zucchini,

grown in deluxe potting mix.

Mildew developed.

 

A possum attack

decimated the broad beans;

the remnants, now caged.

 

Parsley's gone to seed

with silver beet and spinach;

Leaves chomped by insects.

 

Who has a green thumb?

Not me, with Raynaud's disease

and purple fingers.

 

73. Mimmalisa's 'Back to the Garden' invite for Chris Fontana

            

            

            

                              Back to the Garden

            to revive the lost souls

            I have forgotten

            Remove the dessicated leaves

            fried by the sun

            Offer them up

            to the Earth again

            Food for generations to come

            Bring forth

            better beginnings

            with compost and care

            sprinkle and spray

            Test my green thumb

            weather of the day

            Mindful of the minutiae

            keep harm at bay

            

            Aware and watchful

            streaks of slime

            a snail's trail

            arrival of aphids

            sucking up sap

            intense heat

            limp leaves

            soil deplete

            Self-seeded tomatoes

            in my West facing backyard

            not yet ripened

            by Melbourne's Summer sun

            return for another round

            As do savoured memories

            straight from the vine

            the first of the season's spoils

72. Kit Kelen's 'I find a new path in the gardens' - for the 2026 Flying Islands Poetry Manuscript Workshop

 

I find a new path in the gardens

 

it’s everywhere I’ve been before

 

on foot, and thinking back to this

a garden as if someone dreamt

 

it’s all upward of the eye

it’s in the leaf between

 

from crevice

it’s so stretch to this

 

light letting or shade falls

 

look down lest trip

 

some days bare of such a sky

waiting for a sun

waiting for rain to fall

 

path forks

well mulched

and overgrows

 

garden’s open like a question

 

asks

are we nesting?

do we delve?

will we lift a wing?

 

none grow here but had to guess

nor fate gave out

 

each thought is thing

or say it’s all imagining

 

the breeze – a knockabout

brisk risk

 

afoot, I find

how no one ever was before

 

not here

not quite when

 

all this flourish

no names to call

 

path makes its own way

where feet fall

 

stone foliage and a shore lap

black and white

 

it’s what these legs are for

 

no present like this here-we-are

 

can you see what I see?

 

I conjure these colours for you