A friend called to me at our dog walk, near the airport. I was here in this stand of trees, and I noticed the branches were loaded with butterflies. I was here a week ago, walking under these aspens, unaware they were there. Suddenly they all jumped out of the branches and were fluttering around me, above my head, everywhere. Your eye couldn t follow all of them at once, so you looked in a general way, at the shape of the swarm, until you got dizzy.
Truth is, poems are a lousy way to learn out about nature.
The elevation of tone tends to kill the actualness, and the factualness, of what you are seeing. I have read dozens of poems about whippoorwills and nightingales, for instance. Or that the nightingale swoops down at night with a piercing cry that is really kind of scary. To learn these things, you need nature books, or someone who can show you firsthand. Or you need to pay attention.