Parides burchellanus

Glyn Maxwell

CN: Suicide

Unknowing, I do know there was a time
he noted details, the unmarked forewing,
the scalloped outer margin,
the red post-discal spots on the underside
of the hindwing.

Unknowing, I do know he must have slowly
come to the conclusion there was no one
had come as far as he
in peace with this new creature; in my own field
I have some form.

And because I have some form in my own field
I know that at the moment the pink light
of forest dawn or dusk
crept across his findings and the warm world
was deafening,

I know his mind was turned from everything
he’d leave behind, those shards of incident
I pecked from his poor name
as his poor name was all I had for password
in this work.

That he wouldn’t know that, fifty years before this,
Miss Lucia Green his faraway betrothed
fell for the ship’s captain
who was sailing to St Helena to bring her
to his side.

That he wouldn’t know she married Captain Dodds
for I do know well it isn’t on his mind
as he notes there is no tail,
and in fact the forewing isn’t quite unmarked
it has these

small white spots, and of course he wouldn’t know
in old age he will hang himself in Fulham 
in his outhouse in the garden 
or that his sister gifts his great collections
to Kew 

which holds them still. In the amazing light
of jungle dawn I think of William John
alone with nothing else
but his findings in the morning, all the gone
and the to-come

are shrieking for attention he will only
grant when the work is done, and the tall page
turns and a servant brings
what, coffee, I don’t know, I’ve reached the end
of what I do.

The Science

‘Parides Burchellanus’ is part of a series of 100 poems about the world’s 100 most endangered creatures, based on the IUCN/ZSL list compiled in 2012. I focus on a wide range of subjects: the species itself, the reasons for its plight, its habitat or history, its connection with humankind. I am trying to take a panoramic view of humankind through the filters of these creatures – mammals, birds, insects, plants, marine life – all they have in common is the peril each one faces. 

‘Parides burchellanus’ is a poem about attention. As the philosopher-scientist Iain McGilchrist wrote, ‘attention is a moral act.’ A basic research resource like Wikipedia offers salient details of a life; in the case of William John Burchell this includes desertion by his fiancée and suicide in old age. I felt these headlines distort the sense of a long life, so I imagine Burchell at the moment of his apprehending that this swallowtail butterfly is an undiscovered species. His mind is on nothing but getting the details right, while his past and the future are entirely absent. I compare this with the act of writing a poem, the attention required, the limits to imagination in the face of reality.

The Poet

Glyn Maxwell grew up in Hertfordshire. His most recent collections are How The Hell Are You, shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize in 2020, and The Big Calls, a broadside against recent UK government, featuring poems on the UK’s COVID response, the treatment of migrants, the Met Police, Afghanistan and Grenfell. He has recently published an amplification of his popular guidebook On Poetry, called Silly Games To Save The World, about poetry, psychology, politics and philosophy, available on Substack. His plays have been widely staged. He is Head of Studies on the MA at The Poetry School.

Next poem: Pine processionary moths by Anne Eyries