The Last Flight of Mariposa

Far north in the boughs of a blood-redwood tree, where the morning mist curls and clings,
A monarch was born with the sun on her wings, spun fine from the breath of spring.
Her name, Mariposa, was whispered by leaves, and the wind bore it far through the land,
And she fluttered her veil of gold-laced flame like a spark from the earth’s own hand.

She danced on the edges of eucalyptus smoke, in fields where the cane grass swayed,
Where the kookaburras laughed in the ironbark limbs and shadows were softly laid.
But the call of the South beat deep in her heart, a rhythm both old and wise,
A map in her chitin, etched long ago under orange ancestral skies.

From coast to inland plane, the river winds twine through land burnt brittle and cracked,
Where floods once roared now silence reigns and the sky hangs still and slack.
But Mariposa must follow the route, through heatwave and storm-split skies,
For her kin await in a cedar grove far off where the winter dies.

She flew past the towns with their highways wide, past the mines carved into the hills,
Where the soil was gutted and ochre-bled and the diesel air gave chills.
She skirted the smoke of a backburn blaze that had leapt from a careless spark,
And the sun turned bronze in a veiled lament as it sank through the dusty dark.

At times she faltered on poisoned breeze, where crops lay crisp in rows,
And the scent of flowers was sick with spray, though their petals still proudly rose.
But the pull of the South was stronger than death, than the cry of a brolga’s song,
And she pressed her wings through the ache and haze, for she knew she must belong.

Through towns half gone to ghost and drought, she danced past sagging sheds,
Where old men watched with leathery eyes and tipped their battered heads.
“She’s one of the last,” said a time worn woman, “not seen them like this for years,”
And the child beside her followed her flight with wonder and sudden tears.

Their stories still live in the flight of wings, in patterns the stars once wrote,
A memory held in the thread of silk, in the scale on a monarch’s coat.
They say they remember the taste of milkweed, the rustle of prairie grass,
Though they’re born anew, with no map but time, in each generation that’s passed.

But the land is shifting beneath her now, with each degree that climbs,
And the flowers bloom too early or late, out of sync with the ancient chimes.
The rains don’t fall when the hatchlings stir; the winds now betray instead,
And the trees where the monarchs roost each year stand broken or charred or dead.

Yet Mariposa flew on through the void, over dunes where the silence sings,
And her wings bore light from the dawns she passed and the memory of vanished springs.
She dodged the claws of the butcherbird and the net of the orchard’s mesh,
And rested her soul where a schoolchild left a feeder of fruit, still fresh.

She saw the cities sprawl and gleam, their lights like stars grown cold,
And the humming roads that never sleep, and the towers of glass and gold.
But no flower grew on the concrete plain, no murrnong lined the verge,
And so she rose through the steely dusk to where moon and hope converge.

And at last, she came to the southern grove, though it barely breathed or stirred,
Its canopy thinned by the loggers’ blade, and the cry of the nesting bird.
Still, there stood one lone cedar tree, with leaves like mourning lace,
And she clung to its limb as her kin arrived, frail flames from time and space.

Together they covered the ghostly tree like lanterns lit in a prayer,
And the stars looked down in a hush of grief, for so few were gathered there.
Once they would come in millions strong, a storm of saffron and flame,
Now dozens alone, survivors all, bore the weight of the world and name.

Mariposa, her body thin, her colours dulled by flight,
Watched as the dawn touched each trembling wing with a final kiss of light.
And though her life would end with the breaking sun, her story would endure,
For one egg lay on a seedling leaf, fragile, perfect, pure.

And maybe that child would rise in spring, when the land finds breath anew,
When the rivers run and the gidgees sing and the sky reclaims its blue.
Perhaps she’ll fly where the flowers still blossom and the warmth of the wind remains,
And follow the song of her mother’s path through storms and fire and rains.

Now sing, my country, of wings like fire, of a journey fierce and far,
Of a creature small as a finger’s breadth that’s guided by the star.
Teach your children the old, wild ways, where the earth and sky align,
And guard the groves and grasses well, for the monarch’s flight is thine.

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