I know a butterfly.
It is a somewhat unusual thing to know a butterfly, at least on personal terms. One can recognize one type of butterfly from another, or admire one, but to actually know one is a rather wonderous thing.
My butterfly -- how presumptuous of me, to call her mine -- is an extraordinarily rare butterfly. She is a dread pouncing butterfly, of Achernar, with stained-glass wings and antennae, and she is ever-so-fierce (for a butterfly). She pounces on the unwary travellers, and sends them tumbling about, always careful not to smoosh her, and if she is pleased with you, the sun haunts her wings and glorious colors fall over your skin.
Today I had the butterfly perch on my shoulder, and stick her tongue out at the world.
It's a grand thing, to have a butterfly perch on your shoulder, and stick its tongue out at the world. You wouldn't think of a butterfly as a defiant creature, would you? I wouldn't. Even if, as she said, it was only a very .small. tongue, compared to a human tongue.
But think, I said, if a butterfly was as big as a human. A butterfly tongue would be much larger than a human tongue, proportionatly.
A butterfly as big as a human. In James and the Giant Peach, the prettiest bug, I think, that got grown up into human size, was the ladybug. She, like the other bugs, scared the hell out of James, at first. I expect a human-sized butterfly would scare the hell out of me, too, but wow. After that, being able to look at all the delicate feathers that make up a butterfly's wings (without touching, of course, because I wouldn't want to harm it)?
That's sort of how I think of my butterfly. That she's human-sized, but can still perch on your shoulder, and you can brush her ever-so-gently, because you don't want to hurt her, and that because she's such an enormously big and brave butterfly, she can stick her tongue out at the world.
I'm lucky to know the dread pouncing butterfly of Achernar.