Negotiating Physics by David T. Manning

Negotiating PhysicsAnd Other Poems From A Peaceable Kindom by David T. Manning (32 pg. saddle-stapled) ISBN 1-884778-59-3 $7.95 + $1.50 P&H. Send Check or money order to David T. Manning, 422 Knotts Valley Lane, Morrisville, NC 27560. Published by: Old Mountain Press. Cover illustrated by Doris L. Manning.

David's book is a collection of poems celebrating the lives of various "critters"of the animal and plant kingdom as seen by award winning poet David T. Manning. E-mail David at dtmanning at mindspring.com

Two Butterflies

Before me on the driveway
two monarch butterflies
side by side, rest in the shade.
Two tiny bodies, bright sails
high and still—like arms of ballerinas
in the air. Suddenly,

in the silence
they fly apart, one to the woods,
one to the far garden fence, but now
it is back searching searching.
I pray for it to find the other
in butterfly lifetime—but now, it too is gone.

I want to believe in love
that outlasts death for even these.
The Willow Legend says two lovers
once became a pair of doves and flew
away to paradise.
Why not two butterflies?

"David Manning, a keen observer of nature in the manner of Archibald Rutledge, writes of willow oak leaves, ‘fingerlings afloat / in the flowing sky of summer,' and a deer that ‘paints me with his gaze.' A musician and a poet, he uses both rhythms and melodies to give depth to his message."

~ Marie Gilbert

About the Author David Manning, a California native, lives in Cary, North Carolina and is a member of the North Carolina Poetry Society, the North Carolina Writers Conference, and the Friday Noon Poets of Chapel Hill, with whom he has read his work on Public Television of Chapel Hill. He has won awards from the North Carolina Poetry Society, including its Poet Laureate Award in 1996 and again in 1998. His poetry has appeared in Pembroke Magazine, The Comstock Review, Crucible, Wellspring, Ship of Fools, Free Lunch, and other journals.

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