The butterfly counts not months but moments
And has time enough.Rabrindranath Tagore
That was The Times quote for the day yesterday, & I was instantly transported back to a field near Tenby the summer I was 10.
It was a glorious summer & we were on our regular summer camping holiday. I had just been told that butterflies live for only one day.
It seemed unbearable that such beautiful creatures should have such a brief life.
But as I walked carefully round the edge of the field, (where the corn, mixed, as was still common in those days, with wild flowers which attracted butterflies of every hue), trembling on the brink of tears, it occurred to me that if that was all they knew of life, then to a butterfly their life was just as long as was mine to me.
I cheered up immensely. I may even have skipped all the way down to the beach.
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Rabrindranath Tagore
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