Long summer days of butterflies.
When I was a child, we summered high above Beirut—to escape the sticky hotness.
In the mountains, dry, cool smelling and pine forested, we lived on wide stone decks in small stone
houses, napped in hammocks, drove toy cars over hills and through tunnels carved by our fathers into
the rocks and collected snow burr—the pine nuts picked out of pine cones and cracked between
flat rocks.
And we hunted butterflies.
I had a net, metal rimmed, kind of ragged at the end of a short stick with a conical droop that stretched
straight behind when I ran towards the capture.
The hunt—in this, my only memory—included a watcher.
Jim McDonald was on the verandah, leaning back under the cover of the slim roof—with one arm of his
blue shirt pinned up—sitting looking out. My mother pinned his sleeve each morning. Did he speak to
me? I don’t remember. I surely wondered about that missing arm—but did not ask.
I ran aware of his watching. At first this altered the experience of speeding towards the flitting
whiteness, net stretched out—self-conscious. I can see him and I can see me running and I can see him
watching me running.
But then—as the net smashed down, the memory of Jim being there is gone.
Caught one.
And oh so carefully gathering the net, bringing it closer to still the fluttering—“remember to be
gentle”—sounding in my head. The fluttering against my hand, for an instant before lifting the net.
Butterfly release.

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14 August 2010
Prompt:Long Summer days