Prayers fluttering, sputtering, by

Did you see it? Right under your window this week little orange and black prayer flags are fluttering by. These beings, seemingly more fragile than a piece of paper are flapping over and over again, unbelievably, one beat at a time, till they reach their pilgrimage up to 3,000 miles away- that birthplace where their great great grandparents started out last spring.

Untitled. From http://designyoutrust.com/2012/01/this-weeks-animal-photos/ In pubic domain.

This week is the peak of the migration in Oklahoma. Every year at this time I try to greet these tiny miracles with due reverence, well wishing, and hope. I hope that the prayers of my great grand children and beyond will be carried on their wings. I hope they will have the strength to forgive us for encroaching further, sawing out their habitat with increasing apathy, poisoning their food with our genetically modified franken-foods (1), and altering their climate.  I watch everyone I see for as long as I can, blinking and squinting until they disappear into the next horizon.

And I hope, I hope they will make it to their mecca in the clouds in Mexico state and Michoacan at 10,000 feet where they will cluster in droves huddled on top of each other, with missing foot, crumpled body; the marks of the martyr. Each straining to put their exhausted feet on holy ground. They will sit there trembling, their wings folded, like hands in prayer waiting for the blessings of life, waiting for the warming light to infiltrate their translucent stained glass wings.

[Update 1.2.13: Consider signing and spreading this petition to stop roadside mowing that destroys Monarch habitat].

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1) Hansen Jesse, L.C. and Obrycki (2000). Field deposition of Bt transgenic corn pollen: lethal effects on the monarch butterfly. Oecologica, 125, Number 2, 241-248. Retrieved from https://springerlink3.metapress.com/content/r1v349mvetf5pbl9/resource-secured/?target=fulltext.pdf&sid=u1dkpi0k2plssml0n2bgvxcd&sh=www.springerlink.com