The Butterfly

In the daytime thistle
numbered the flowers
shunned by the flying butterfly;
no sound points them out
under the angular blue
of night, with closed wings.

A dozen of futures
substituted in the labyrinth
of dreams and fancies,
among a velvet shadow,
freed breaking,
our skin the random kernel.

Yonder lives the shade,
yonder lights abide.
Toward blue lamps I send
now the return of my heart.
I sang of flowers,
i sang of ghosts.

Butterfly! Please visit me
as near as in absence
of the delicate pulse of my future.
Fly lightly!

• Gabriela Mistral