Royalty Returns

I came up one a lady today who had been around the block a few times and was clearly worse for the wear.  It was just as clear that she was once stunningly beautiful, but now her color was so bad that it was almost translucent, like you could almost see right through her.  At points, in fact, I think you could.

She was well traveled, and yes, beat up to the point of being tattered around the edges.  But whatever violence she had seen, and  whatever forms of violence she had experienced, it didn't keep her from looking to the future and ensuring a place for the next generation in it.

Gently she touched her abdomen to the undersides of a milkweed leaf, depositing a tiny white egg.   Then it was up again into the air, not as high as she once flew, only high enough now to make it to the next milkweed plant  where she repeated the action again and again.

It was good to welcome another old friend back to the garden today, a well seasoned Monarch whose long journey is coming to its end.   And it will be good to welcome her children, and watch them grow and transform until one day they take to the sky and take up their journey where hers left off.