[Rose Kelleher]

Lucifer

Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.
But tell me, tell me, how do you know
he lost any of his brightness in the falling?
In the dark-blue depths, under layers and layers of darkness,
I see him more like the ruby, a gleam from within
of his own magnificence,
coming like the ruby in the invisible dark, glowing
with his own annunciation, towards us.

Ooh. Thanks for that.

In my copy of his Complete Poems, that one and "Bavarian Gentians" are on the same page. Gorgeous poems, both. On the facing page, though, he has a goopy one about a butterfly. If we can all agree that "Bavarian Gentians" and "Lucifer" are good poems, and "Butterfly" is, eh, not so good (a big IF, I know), it might be instructive to compare them. What makes one "Ooh"-worthy and the other goopy?

Editing in: I tried to find the poem online, but all the versions I found have extra line breaks inserted. Sigh. Here it is.

Butterfly

Butterfly, the wind blows sea-ward, strong beyond the garden wall!
Butterfly, why do you settle on my shoe, and sip the dirt on my shoe,
Lifting your veined wings, lifting them? big white butterfly!

Already it is October, and the wind blows strong to the sea
from the hills where snow must have fallen, the wind is polished
..........with snow.
Here in the garden, with red geraniums, it is warm, it is warm
but the wind blows strong to sea-ward, white butterfly, content on
..........my shoe!

Will you go, will you go from my warm house?
Will you climb on your big soft wings, black-dotted,
as up an invisible rainbow, an arch
till the wind slides you sheer from the arch-crest
and in a strange level fluttering you go out to sea-ward, white speck!

Farewell, farewell, lost soul!
you have melted in the crystalline distance,
it is enough! I saw you vanish into air.