Back in 2015 Lisa Haderlein, the McHenry
County environmental maven, preserver and restorer of wild
places, and currently a Democratic candidate for Congress in
the Illinois 16th Congressional District posted the accompanying photo
on Facebook. It was taken outside the Starline
Gallery in Harvard. It got me to thinking and I
posted this seven years ago on this date.
The Lovely Corpse
Monarchs, they say, are a dying breed.
Not the superfluous Royals of Windsor
or
oil rich Arabs.
They will disappear, too,
in their own good time
but are not our business here today.
I am talking about those golden orange and black
zephyr
riding marvels that by the millions
used
brighten Septembers
with
hints golden autumn yet to come
on
their epic migrations
from
Canadian prairies
to
Mexican piney woods.
They are scarcer with every passing year.
Now each sighting is an adventure
like
spotting some rare songbird
flitting
unexpectedly from bough to bough.
They say the warming world is to blame
which
is tough on common milkweed,
the
migrant’s only diet.
Perhaps.
But if I say it out loud,
some Fox News talking head
will scream that I’m a liar and a fraud
and someone will decide that after all
they are illegal immigrants
and likely terrorists to boot
and propose to build a wall net
to ensnare them lest they
infect our purity.
A friend of mine espied one the other day
and
thought to snap a photo,
but
the monarch was not on wing
or
resting on some rare milkweed pod,
but
splatted against the gleaming grill
of
a Jaguar.
Think of all that horsepower
from
the carbon spewing engine
that
cooks the atmosphere
that
kills the milkweed
yet
made this assassination
personal.
—Patrick Murfin
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