Riehlife Poem of the Day: Nabokov’s Butterflies
Painting by Joseph Lamarque (see profile under Art Matters)
Vladimir Nabokov’s poem was suggested by my friend Leigh Davidson as our poem of the day.–JGR
Nabokov’s Butterflies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings
No, life is no quivering quandary!
No, life is no quivering quandary!
Here under the moon things are bright and dewy.
We are the caterpillars of angels; and sweet
It is to eat from the edge into the tender leaf.
Dress yourself up in the thorns, crawl, bend, grow strong—
and the greedier was your green track,
the more velvety and splendid
the tails of your liberated wings.