The Butterfly's Final Inquiry And Goodbye

A butterfly asked me a question:
Why do I appear in people's poetry
Where my presence has no place?
I mean, people put me in their poems
That have nothing to do with me at all.

I took some time to ponder this inquiry.
I thought how beautiful butterflies are:
Like a painting of a permanent rainbow,
How they once were caterpillars,
Then they meditated in their cocoons,
Incubated in their dreams;
And grew wings.

I looked for the butterfly
To give it my reply.
To tell it that it is a
Symbol and a metaphor;
But it had already died.