Letter to an Orange Tip

I almost didn’t see you.

I was focused on the lady’s smock, its pale petals catching the spring light, when you revealed yourself - silent, perfectly still, folded into the flower’s green and white. A slip of life hidden in plain sight.

You are one of the first butterflies to rise with the warming days, they say. The males are easier to spot, flashing their orange-tipped wings like tiny sparks across the fields. But you, quieter, carry the season differently - through camouflage, not colour. Through staying still enough to disappear.

You belong to these meadows, these damp woods and wild edges. You depend on the old plants that still manage to survive here: cuckooflower and garlic mustard. Your life weaves into theirs so closely that to lose them would be to lose you too.

I wonder how often we walk past what matters, without ever knowing. I wonder how much beauty stays folded into the world, asking nothing, offering everything.

Thank you for being there. Thank you for waiting until I was still enough to see you.

Image: Orange Tip perched on Lady's Smock on Butler Hill