Where Have the Butterflies Gone?

I still remember when the gardens danced...

AI Artwork

Where Have the Butterflies Gone?

As a child, I saw you in our garden

The marigolds heaved with your wings

I’d count up your different varieties

as you went about butterfly things

Common cabbage-whites mingled with monarchs

and those yellow ones, what were they called?

Watching for hours, in the African sun,

what child could ever grow bored?

One day, I shrieked with excitement,

my butterfly book yanked out in my glee.

“Mom, I promise, I saw a giant swallow tail!”

(A sight of extreme rarity!)

Inevitably I wanted to collect you

but felt guilty when I saw you were dead

and my revulsion was totally unparalleled

when supportive mom shoved pins through your head

That saw the end of my interest...

but I should have watched more in those sunny days

for you seem to have gone from our gardens.

Where have the butterflies gone to these days?

Inspiration

As a child, I chose to collect butterflies for a school science project. Looking back, I regret how little respect I had for their lives. As the years passed, I also realised they were no longer filling our gardens as they once had. This poem grew from those two memories becoming one.

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© Catherine Knee 2026. All rights reserved.

AI Declaration

AI was used solely to create the accompanying artwork.

No AI was used in the writing of this poem.

Where Have the Butterflies Gone? is a nostalgic contemporary poem by Catherine Knee reflecting on childhood, butterflies, nature, conservation and changing wildlife through personal memory.