Last Day in North Woods
  by Francine Marie Tolf

This hour of hilltop and wind-shimmer,
acres of aspen glittering,
why should I have it?

The yellow butterfly
at my feet doesn’t know.
She sips one garnet-ringed flower,
then another, ignoring
the two columns of boots in her path.

She doesn’t know, and neither do I,
how soon after this brightness I will feel spite,
or swallow praise for a friend
because of a little envy.