Grasping Butterflies

One fine sunny day I saw a butterfly flitting amongst the daisies of a field. I held out my hand and it came to light upon my finger. I watched it there, the most beautiful of God’s creations, and as it slowly batted its wings I thought that I might capture it and have that beauty for my own. So I grasped it in my grip, and there it struggled. I was so taken by its beauty that I did not see that I was killing it. At last it almost died, but God gives wisdom to butterflies as well as men. In a flurry of struggle it slipped from my grasp and flew into my face. I felt its wings tickling my cheek. Even then I could have grasped it, but I knew that if I did then it would destroy everything, and all the beauty that I loved would fade away. So I let it go because after all that which is beautiful can never be held. God makes life so delicate so that we may have it for a second and no more. I want the things that I can’t have, yet sometimes God gives them to me in dreams. Dreams that make me weep, alone and silently, so that no one sees I do, sometimes in sadness but more often with joy.