Milkweed

Apparently monarch habitat is being decimated.  There are fewer monarchs around due to a number of things: weed killer in fields, climate change, you name it.  There are fewer monarchs.  We consider planting our backyard, particularly the back corners where little grows, with milkweed.  We do not know how the monarchs will find us.  I imagine there are monarch ways, just like the hobos used to draw pictures on the gates of kind people who would give them food for the journey.

As children

We collected

Milkweed pods,

Split them open,

Blew the seeds.

We ran

With nets,

Caught monarch butterflies,

Let them go.

Fifty-eight years on

Fifty-nine years on

We consider planting our backyard

Full of milkweed,

A specific butterfly garden.

We will place signs

On the rooftop

Only butterflies can read.

The signs will speak

Butterfly language.

We will offer a safe yard

For hungry monarchs.