They arrive in California each winter, an undulating ribbon of orange and black. There, migrating western monarch butterflies nestle among the state’s coastal forests, traveling from as far away as Idaho and Utah only to return home in the spring.
This year, though, the monarchs’ flight seems more perilous than ever. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit group that conducts a yearly census of the western monarch, said the population reached historic lows in 2018, an estimated 86 percent decline from the previous year.
NYT
Millie was a butterfly, a Monarch of the sky.
Majestically she flew each day, on wings of double dye.
Her delicate antennae waved in happy cadency;
her patterns in the sultry air were wonderful to see.
She dined upon the milkweed and the downy thistle, too.
In shady nooks by hissing brooks she rested with her crew.
How often would the children smile to watch her actions coy;
her kind make life seem ample to each little girl and boy.
"Come, fellows" she would whisper to companions in the trees,
"let's shimmer and then glimmer just as much as we do please!"
Folding in and out their wings, the Monarchs beauty made
that put Venus de Milo in the ever-lovin' shade.
From vivid green chrysalis Millie came forth in the Spring,
with thousands of her kindred to be sunshine on the wing.
And when the wind was shifting and the air grew pallid cold
she fled with her companions to find sunsets warm and gold.
She floated back this summer to a backyard garden where
lilac and red clover and cone flowers were her care.
But she was all alone; there were no others of her kind.
The Monarchs had been poisoned and left homeless, and declined
until poor lonely Millie was the last one left to skim
the summer haze in silence like a discontinued hymn.
"Where have my companions gone?" the zephyrs heard her cry.
No answer was vouchsafed her, so she fell to earth to die.
