Flight of Fancy

You might feel that it is for your
viewing pleasure, your entertainment
ego-driven humanity
that nature's creatures preen
and pivot, dive and swivel
soar through the air
and nimbly careen through
woodlands but indeed this is not so.
Take the early spring-appearing
presence of that dark-robed
swift-winged creature
human science has named 
Mourning Cloak. True its garb
is charcoal-dark yet festooned with
jewels of bright colour bordering
its wings and its graceful
arabesques and pirouettes
as it soars overhead proclaim
its possession of life
and rhapsody of emotion
at sensations and drives that
it tenderly shares with a newfound
friend as they tumble in the air
in a merry-go-round of rapture
capturing the essence of survival
in the divine act of procreation.