Every spring we butterflies — the
very pink sisters of the moon —
climb up Ring Mountain.

Sacred work, this migration, stumbling
in the mud running over the rivulets rising—
ample and rampant as milkmaids.

Our frail fingers fondle round buds, reddish
as breasts, caress one another—
petals, angular as sin. At the center,

Gold is threaded through.
Needles like ours thrive only in this soil.
Remember. No one else can ever fly for you.