[ Sunday, May 09, 2004 ]
FINDING MAGIC
IN THE WORLD
IS UP TO YOU
APALACHICOLA, Fla. — Headstones of marble, granite and wood leaned in all directions behind a wrought iron fence and under the dangling mossy beards of oaks and magnolias. Small confederate battle flags marked the resting-places of soldiers in the War Between the States.
My daughter tried with little success to make a rubbing from a wooden marker whose letters had eroded for a hundred years. Using a black crayon on sketching paper, I pulled one from a slab: “Good Citizen, Beloved Father.” That would go in our vacation scrapbook.
My wife slapped at mosquitoes and noted the unusual number of undersized graves, dating from a time when life expectancy was much lower, when Yellow Fever and polio ran rampant, when influenza was a killing virus.
My daughter paused beside a child’s grave marked by a white marble cross. No lettering revealed the name, age or era.
A monarch butterfly sat on the left arm of the cross and opened its wings. Closed them. Opened them. Then it soared into the lower limbs of an oak, circled through Spanish moss and landed in the same spot it had occupied a moment before.
Opened its wings. Closed them. Opened them.
Soared, circled and landed.
My daughter giggled and leaned close with her Instamatic and took a photograph. “Why is it doing that?” she asked as it again rocketed into the sky and circled back to land.
“Some people believe that souls are transformed into butterflies when you die,” I said. “It’s an old folk tale. Maybe this is the spirit of the baby that’s buried here, or maybe it’s the baby’s mother’s spirit keeping watch after a hundred years.”
Standing there with my daughter and the circling butterfly, I thought about magic. There’s not enough magic in the world, not enough wonder. Everything’s concrete. Kids are cynical. Adults are bitter. Nobody stops to make rubbings or breathe the evening breeze or photograph butterflies or tell folk tales.
But that’s our own fault, isn’t it? The magic is still there, waiting. We just don’t take time to let it touch us. We don’t open to it, pause and reach out for it.
The butterfly settled at last and rested on the cross, slowly opening and closing its wings. It did not fly away. I leaned closer, reached one finger toward it. It opened and closed its wings, unconcerned.
I lightly touched the edge of the left wing and the creature shot into the air. It circled twice this time before landing again in the same spot.
“What do you think it really was?” my son asked.
“A butterfly,” I said. “If it was anything more than that, each of us has to decide that for ourselves.”
Peace.
**
(The preceding originally appeared as one of my weekly columns, Undercurrents, in The News Herald, Panama City, Fla. You can view more at the online archive, www.newsherald.com, or e-mail me at tonysimmons@yahoo.com)
Unknown [4:24 PM]
