Gallery Show, The Caribbean - St. Maartens Butterfly Farm

All photographs were taken with a Kodak Easy Share cx7525 camera and are unretouched. Except for cropping, the pictures have not been manipulated in any way.

These photos were taken while I was on a cruise in the Caribbean. From time to time, a group of family and friends get together and go on a cruise, usually in October when rates are a little cheaper and kids are in school. If it weren't for all the cruise ships and tourists (yes, I get the irony), I could live on St. Thomas quite happily...especially if I could visit St. Maarten on a regular basis.

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Pods

Pods

Hanging from the ferny trees,
Strange pods invited curious fingers
To reach, touch
Perhaps to grasp
But we took only pictures,
Left only footprints
And unmolested pod-trees

Pods was photographed on the island of St. Maarten, outside the butterfly farm there. These trees were all over the island, but I never learned their name. They were great fun to look at, though, and we laughingly referred to them as “Alien Pod Trees”. I remember when I was a child, receiving a gift of pods much like these, dried and brown – they rattled, pleasing the musician in me, and I played with them until they cracked open and spilled their seeds on the floor.

~~~~~Black, White, Pink

Shared Delight

Moth

Be Still

Black, White, Pink; Shared Delight; Moth; Be Still

Soft as whispers brushing our skin
Butterflies fluttered, curious
Against upturned faces
Landed light-footed
On punch bedewed fingers
Sipping daintily
Then away again
Sometimes tipsy
(when the punch contained rum)

The butterfly farm on St.Maartens is as touristy as it gets – but it’s also wonderful, well worth the sometimes harrowing (traffic! livestock! tiny roads!) bus ride to get there. We were given a tour and cups of punch – all we could drink, with or without rum (juice for the children). There were trees, bushes, flowers, and a winding path through the butterfly house. They told us to put drops of punch on our fingers, hands, noses, and the butterflies would come – especially to the rum punch! Iridescent blue, crimson, white, black, orange…a living rainbow in constant motion. When an orange one landed on my mother’s hand, she brought my son closer to see, and he was entranced. She carefully transferred the little creature from her finger to his, one generation to another. The moths were quiet in their trees, exhausted after recent long, stormy nights. They were content to be noticed by the observant and left to their own devices.

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Tomorrow: More of the Caribbean