I was in the back yard looking at a collage of high school reunion pictures when a Monarch Butterfly paid me a visit. The laptop computer screen was alive with color and the butterfly thought it was surely flowers. She – I think it was she – flew right into my lap and began bumping into the computer screen. When she bounced away, she came back again and again. Anything that colorful has to be a flower, she was thinking. I held out my finger, hoping she would land take a little rest, but again and again she bumped into the computer screen.
I have seen a few Monarchs in our yard this summer. We have milkweed plants and plenty of butterfly bushes. The endangered beauties need milkweed more than anything. It’s the only plant upon which they can lay their eggs.
The pretty yellow monarch eventually flew away, still wondering how something that colorful could not be a flower.