Monarchs
by Gregory Lobas
A honeyed October afternoon,
sea surge a comfortable lull behind me
like the rise and fall of someone napping.
I sit on a sun-bleached deck
and count Monarchs that tilt in the wind like confetti
left over from the big parade of summer.
They touch-and-go on dry sea oats,
sip from goldenrod stalks,
then resume their urgent tumble beyond the dunes,
a quest awakened singly, in far northern
latitudes. Streaming southbound,
they've risen to a torrent.
O little Quixotes, I hope in
your mission, for I, too, am of a precarious
race, savants, insatiate for knowledge
but devoid of understanding.
You, flamboyant to save, you know one thing only,
but you know it perfectly well,
and you ferry it deep into a forest in Mexico,
fan it with your powdery wings,
keep the flame of it alive for another year.
Gregory Lobas is the author of Left of Center (Broadkill River Press, 2022) which won the 2022 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize. His work has appeared in numerous journals such as Vox Populi, Cimarron Review, Tar River Poetry, Canary, and many others. He teaches a poetry craft workshop at Isothermal Community College, and has been a guest presenter at the Carl Sandburg Virtual Writers' Program. He lives in the western foothills of North Carolina.
