Sonnets From Other Lives: Butterfly

Sequoia sempervirens ruled these slopes
fifteen hundred years before the girl
jumared ninety meters up a rope
& took residence for two years in its world—
an ecosystem in the canopy—
where detritus gathers in the limbs to host
Tanbark Oak, Salal, & Huckleberry
& now this woman/guardian—her post
a platform on a tree she would call Luna.
She faced winter storms, harassment, legal threats--
none of them dislodged her. Soon the
world heard & marveled. Join me—let’s
watch her standing—arms spread—on the crown—
gazing up & out instead of down