Monarch Butterflies Use the Earth's Magnetic Field

“But tonight we are merely adorned/with the instruments of our deaths.”

                        -Christopher Dewdney

i.            

         

I was a bird, I had wings. Somewhere in the dark folds between the drum of red where light knew no place a body other than this one belonged to me more significantly and moved as I moved so I knew no separation from my limbs, I could not have known any part of my body without knowing the whole, my wingspan so breathtaking it moved grass to bow at my feet; I could take up space and fill it, I could cut air to be smaller, more compact, to move past me and move on; I could fly I had the body of a bird, bones light and full of air, so easy to carry, so easy to crush.

ii.

                  

I can remember when we were just kids that one summer we looked up and the sky that had been so blue was suddenly black and it took us a few minutes before we realized what was happening: it was the migration of the monarchs turning the sky from blue to black in seconds and you and I stood so still, listening to the hum of a million wings beating.

iii.

                

I once read that monarch butterflies suffer losses during hibernation because hungry birds pick through them, looking for those with the least amount of poison but in the process kill those they reject.

iv.

                 

The earth’s magnetic field is preparing to flip, as it is supposed to every few hundred thousand years, as in, it is now long overdue, it’s been almost eight hundred thousand years and no flip but it is beginning to weaken and shift, solar winds are cracking the barriers and animals who use the field for navigation, butterflies, bees, and fish, they will be confused, on the Earth lost, no idea which direction is home.

Except birds, who have hope, who are prepared with back-up systems that use stars and landmarks, including roads and power lines, to find their way and so, we are bringing the birds home.