Late Summer Purple
- Joe Pye stands by milkweed
- coneflowers blazing stars
- bee balm All offer their sweets
- to fluttering flocks
- I examine each milkweed
- for Monarch caterpillars
- munching their way to an
- amazing metamorphosis
- Before the autumnal equinox
- these royal creatures
- will join others
- for the long flight to Mexico
- Next spring future generations
- will reappear on our prairie
- sipping nectar from
- white and pink chalices
- S. Oberhauser
August 2008