Encounter in the Alley

Those insubstantial-looking
little filaments of legs
caught me off-guard.
Butterflies are airy things,
ephemeral
and light
like perfect little metaphors
for the beauty of early spring,
so achingly brief,
so fleeting,

but this one lay bedraggled
in the dirt.
Tattered wings
torn by a hungry beak.
Too broken to rise from the ground,
nothing awaited it but death.
When I reached down to it,
the slender threads
of butterfly legs
gripped my finger
like a first time skydiver
afraid of the drop
into the unknown.

Why did I bother lifting it?
Above, a fluttering cloud
of its brethren
trembled in the trees
too high for me.
Too far for us to reach.
We settled for a low shrub.
Weary, the creature shuffled
toward a leaf where I left it.
I walked away
because my fumbling human
hand was helpless
to save this life.