Monarch Butterfly Poem

This poem celebrates the life of the Monarch butterfly from egg to adult insect. It is based on the English haiku style of 3 lines with a syllable pattern of 5-7-5. However, these haikus are not meant to stand alone but rather to be part of the whole, showing how the cycle of the Monarch’s life goes.

Now there are many ways of writing poetry, all with official sounding names: odes, limericks, haikus (personal favorite style), quatrains and many more. I just write the poetry as it comes into my head and let other folks classify it. In this case, and since I like writing in the 5-7-5 syllable style of haiku, I wrote the poem using haikus but set them up so that they flow into each other.

Is there a specific name for this kind of flowing haiku poetry? I don't know but if you do you are more than welcome to tell me about it in the comments.

Enjoy this short poem on the Monarch butterfly and I hope you see one flying in your neighborhood.

Monarch female lays

Micro eggs on milkweed leaves

Flutters off, lays more

Tiny egg hatches

Small worm munches the shell

Eats the leaf of birth

Longer and stronger

Poison gain from milkweed sap

Show colors brightly

Continue to grow

Eat the leaf and drink the sap

Metamorphous calls

Hang from branch or stem

Sticky silk holds chrysalis

Change body inside

Crack the shell again

Emerge transformed monarch worm

Butterfly flies free

Those of us in the USA who have been lucky enough to witness the flight of the Monarch hold this butterfly in awe. Yet its beginnings are humble. It starts as a tiny spec of an egg laid by the female Monarch. She can lay hundreds of eggs over her lifetime. She flutters to various milkweed plants laying an egg or two here and another there. Then flies off to find another batch of milkweed plants both to dine on (they suck nectar from the milkweed flowers) and to provide a home for the future generation.

There appear to be 3 to 4 generations of the Monarch butterfly depending on weather conditions and available food source (that would be some type of milkweed plant). The first generations after the Monarch returns from their winter retreat in Mexico (almost all Monarch butterflies seem to end up in Mexico or California (which at one time was northern Mexico before there was a USA or a Mexico, live only for a few weeks. Only the last generation, just before winter arrives, makes the trip to the West. These live quite a long time for a butterfly, up to eight months.

The caterpillars grow and grow until they reach the right size (2 to 3 inches long and rather chubby) then find a place to hang themselves and form into a chrysalis. Inside this chrysalis their bodies transform until, a week or two later, they break it open and emerge as adult Monarch butterflies. Once their wings unfold and dry up, it’s up and away to fly free in the winds, just like in the Monarch butterfly poem .