BUTTERFLY (by Chinua Achebe)
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Speed is violence
Power is violence
Weight is violence
The butterfly seeks safety in lightness
In weightless, undulating flight
But at a crossroads where mottled light
From trees falls on a brash new highway
Our convergent territories meet
I come power-packed enough for two
And the gentle butterfly offers
Itself in bright yellow sacrifice
Upon my hard silicon shield.
© Chinua Achebe
Matt says: This poem is about excess of force. Excess means wealth which means comfort. The driver, comfortable, speeding along the highway, protected by the product of his knowledge, going somewhere (where?) occupies a man-made space. The butterfly, meandering towards the sunlight, directionless, a natural one. The contrast of forces is between man as technological and the butterfly as biological. The butterfly is blessed. The driver, fallen from grace, violent.
Sacrifice usually means transfiguration - grace overcoming violence and death. Not in this case. They meet at the crossroads, a pastoral image but also a location of business, exchange - perhaps therefore politics. If you need a political interpretation then consider the poem as about the comfortable violence of wealth.
Maya Jaggi says: The car crash in Nigeria in 1990 that left him in a wheelchair gives an appalling resonance to "Benin Road", which records a collision between a butterfly that "seeks safety in light- ness / In weightless, undulating flight" and a driver "power-packed for two". As "the gentle butterfly offers / Itself in bright yellow sacrifice / Upon my hard silicon shield", the poem not only underlines the poet's own vulnerability, but offers a metaphor for human fragility in the face of overwhelming power and violence.
Someone says:
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10 voices:
Eye blink in silence. The still silence from the end of it all.
I am glad I got to read him here. I will try to answer these questions ASAP!
this is simply beautiful.
:-]
The butterfly is nature, in all its pureness and freedom.
The automobile is industry, "progress", Man.
The collision is man's negative impact on nature.
A curious question... I think it's ironic due to the fact, it takes such powerful machine to kill something so delicate - this is happening all the time, and the butterfly is impervious to it, really.
to me the butterfly represents the spirit of mankind,, free and unbounded by the confines put in place by man..
the windshield,, the proclivity of man to put into place controls, rules, barriers, in order to suck from some the power of others
i see the collision as the sacrifices that are forthcoming from the implementation of one mans laws, morals, ideals, religions... the things that are not of the spirit but of the mortal desire to inflict inflict the superiority of one race, religion, government , thought process, set of morals, etc.. upon the masses,, usually by force...
and the thing i find most ironic in this,, is the clarity of the windshield... we can see it happening.. and yet we continue to drive ,, as if it matters not....
this was so thought provoking.. thank you again my friend.....
i have goose flesh,, your work,, and the work of the poets you bring to the table inspires me so...
i couldn't help myself,, it poured forth of its own volition......
"crippling crutch"
Yes, to me the butterfly is nature or freedom, the car industrialistion or confinement, the collision, man's impact on nature or enlightenment; there seem to be many ironies here....perhaps the greatest for me is that the writer is a man horrified by violence (power) and yet the butterfly dies anyway.
(And I just used the word undulating today, a beautiful word it is....) An excellent poem, thanks Rethabile, I'm going to look up some more of his work.
The two critiques you post with the work answers the questions that follow and the subsequent answers support the original observations. I've read this a few times and enjoy it and the complexities of it more each time.
Jo, I am more familiar with Achebe's prose than poetry. I highly recommend, Things Fall Apart. There is excellent criticism of Achebe's work in a reference series for students entitled Novels For Students published by the Gale Group.
Why Green? Any particular intention?
Green to support the people of Iran who want their human rights (and i hope that's what they want), and green because Juliet, the Creafty Green Poet, has influenced me.
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