And the butterfly said: “I told you.”
(Chamalú)

How long is it since you last saw a butterfly flying? Is it days, months…, years perhaps? When was the last time you were surprised by the beating rainbow of weightless wings in their silent path of colour and light? When did you last watch a butterfly alight on a flower and notice its straight antennae, its pigeonhole eyes, the tender spiral of its sucking tongue skilfully unwinding towards the hidden nectar in the flower’s heart? 

When I was a child I saw butterflies daily, not just in the fields, but in the midst of the city that was less asphalt and more garden than it is now. Only in winter would I miss them, and I eagerly expected the appearance of the first butterfly as a living certificate of the arrival of spring. I would even catch them tenderly between my fingers to watch closely the bursting geometry of the designs on their wings, the life of their colours, and the suppleness of their sails, to let them take flight again after a while, keeping only between my fingers the printed memory of the magic powder from their fairy wings. That was when I was innocent and the air was clean. Now I don’t see any butterflies around. Where can they have gone to?

They tell us that a good index to measure the ecological health of a region is the number of butterflies that are seen flying freely in it. If that is so, we are in poor health. The butterflies withdraw because the air is defiled, the grass withers, the flowers depart. And as they leave us, they take away the consolation we had in enjoying their cheerful presence and in gratefully acknowledging their precious witness on our live environment. Now they are no more here, and their absence emphasizes the saddened poverty of the air we breathe and the earth we walk on. We have lost our character certificate. Retribution will not be long in coming.

What is there in the loss of a butterfly? Losing a butterfly is losing a part of nature, losing an heirloom, losing creation. God generously created a multiplicity of living beings for the company, service, and joy of man and woman, to show them, after he had made them in his own image, his practical love and his all-embracing providence. The paternal heritage that furnished and embellished the house in which the children are to live. To preserve the family homestead in good keep is sacred duty for each generation. That is why ecology is a virtue, and the care of our environment is worship of God. Any loss of our inheritance is an offence to the Father who bequeathed it to us.

The loss continues. Plant by plant, butterfly by butterfly, species by species. The list increases daily. We lose greenery, we lose melody, we lose colour, we lose life. And the loss is irretrievable. The butterfly that once leaves, never comes back. That is why it wants to warn us before it leaves. It wants to wake us up before it is too late.