Butterfly Rescue!

On the sidewalk, I found a butterfly.

When I stooped to take a closer look, I saw that it was flipped on its backside and quivering. A swallowtail, with bright yellow wings. I thought it might be injured, but its wings and body were intact. I tried to coax it to climb onto my finger, but it was too weak. So I gently picked it up and cradled it in my cupped hand.

It was then that I saw that it’s proboscis was uncurled, like a dog’s panting tongue loll.

It needs a drink, I thought, as I cut my morning walk short and headed straight home.

I had some pressed fruit juice in the fridge, so I put a few drops in a plastic container lid, which was the closest thing I could find to a tiny dish. I’d hoped the butterfly would drink on its own, but it just lay there on the kitchen counter, wings quivering, so using a chopstick I guided its lolling proboscis into the pool of juice.

I had no idea if it was drinking, but after a few minutes, it started to move its legs about—and its wings flickered briefly. His proboscis also curled up on its own. But his wings still quivered, and he could not hold himself steady with his legs.

Maybe he’s too far gone, I thought. But then I remembered how cold the morning had been—and how when I’d first spotted the butterfly, the sun had not yet broken above the mountain ridge. He needs sun. So I used my finger to lift him onto my palm, and I took him outside.

As I held him up to the light, after just a minute or so, he twitched and vanished from my hand, flapping, lifting himself up and up, then sinking, then lifting himself up again, climbing the air, until the effort was too much—and he crash landed in the grass and weeds.

Thrilled and disheartened at once, I took him back in to rest and rehydrate, then, brought him out a second time. Again, he lifted off from my palm, flew a bit higher and longer this time, but still plummeted to the ground. At that point, I decided to just let him be—poor thing—as I went to work in the yard.

I weeded and watered for an hour, but my mind still turned back to the butterfly, so I searched for him in the spot where I’d seen him drop from the sky. I brought him back inside, offered him sugar water this time to see if that would make any difference.

Now, the sun was high above the mountain ridge, so when I brought him out the third time the light was warming up the colors of the earth.

How bright his yellow wings shone!

I admired the tiger stripes on the top of his forewings and the black bands at the bottom fringe. How marvelous, too, were the azure and orange markings on the tail of the hind wings. A perfect specimen, really. Then I saw what looked like a flex, as if strength and structure were returning to his wing. He clapped and vanished from my hand, and flew straight up to the sun, higher and higher, till he was a flicker of yellow gold in the sky.

Then he sailed up and across the blue arc, high above the tallest trees of the yard, until he disappeared from view entirely, as if the gold yellow of his wings had melted like butter in the morning sun.