My collection of Lepidoptera: (Extermina Sum)
They are delicate specimens to be handled with tenderness, when they are yours please handle them with care and patience, gaze upon them with affection, as a voyeur would, it is the past in your hands.
Enclosed in the magic box are several species.
It is a suspended perspiration of life, a fetishization of death. Something that blurs the lines between blush and pale, a fairytale, a glass coffin of sorts.
It incites a flurry of feelings; inspiration, admiration, a little caution and conscience.
Red Admiral (Vanessa Atlanta) crimson-barred butterfly* procured on 3/26/07
Swallowtail (Papilio machaon) this particular one is in the color yellow. It is resilient
Monarch butterfly (danaus plexippus) Empress which embarks upon pilgrimage, family: Nymphalidae
Blue morpho (Morpho menelaus): the rare shade of lapis lazuli, exquisite specimen in great shape and condition
Jesus (Celestine daecia) in crucifixion procured 3/24/36, reunion
Crimson rose (Pachliopta hector) butterfly of the rose genus.
*I am thinking of you darling friend
VN on catching butterflies: “It is like a momentary vacuum into which rushes all that I love, a sense of oneness with sun and stone, a thrill of gratitude to whom it may concern, perhaps to the contrapuntal genius of human fate or to the tender ghosts humoring a lucky mortal.”
