The silver-spotted skipper, that rarest butterfly,

Emerges from its cocoon in mid-July…to flutter… fly

Through the grasses deep upon the downland Heath.

Sheep’s-fescue thrives on chalk-filled soil, black and white, beneath.

Such beauty is short-lived… finite… discrete,

For the graceful butterfly (part of nature’s evolved elite)

Will soon bid adieu - a seemingly hurried goodbye.

For, in two months, it will surely die.

All beauty is but briefly bright; a trick of nature’s light

That enthralls with her beguiling looks… to entice… excite,

But yet is a shooting star that will rise but surely fall.

As beauty fades, reality invades, and the superficial becomes banal.

[Also on: http://rhymesplus.com/index.php/thanks/butterfly-beauty/   ]