Baby Mary

Slight as a butterfly, you landed me. The Italians call it ‘farfalla’. La farfalla è bella.

There’s something beautiful about that name - like it embodies perfectly how a butterfly floats; swims in the ebbs and flows of the wind. And here you are - my fullest flood, the end of all ebbs.

Feet pink and small, eyes wide like you’ve never seen the world before; on this rare occasion that is no exaggeration. From pain you were birthed, and until you go, that is the last of it. Oh beautiful! Oh butterfly!

‘Papillon’ say the French - papillon pappilon sweet like a pitcher of pink lemonade. I’ll hold you ever so gently, like water from a river, in the cup of my hands - that river I’ve been seeking along the trail of my life. Parts of you may slip through the cracks, my hands are only human - but every droplet that remains I’ll treat like prize.

Spain calls them ‘mariposa’. From (virgin) Mary + ‘posare’ - alight, as it alights and rests, flies and rests. Yes, that is you - she who alights and rests, she who portrays the beauty that generations have idolised. Mary.