Sitting on a chair in my boyfriend's backyard last month, I was suddenly aware of all these butterflies...not the small ones flying around the University of Texas campus, but these huge Monarch butterflies. They kept swooping in like small birds to prey. They were these delicate things. Ever curious, I walked over to the tree they seemed to be landing on. It was November, leaves were still sort of greenish yellow here in Texas. So, there I stood under a tree looking at dying leaves, or so I thought...but I realized that half or more of the "leaves" I saw were not so. They were the Monarchs--wings closed for a minute, open and fluttering when another came around. Talking in some language we are too deaf to hear. The ends of the branches were filled with what appeared to be dying leaves, but they were Monarch butterflies. Close to the highway, one would think, and most of the time they would be correct, that all you would hear are the cars and trucks. But that afternoon, evening, and the next early morning , the loud obnoxious highway sound was pushed to the back of my head by the silent sound of butterfly wings. Now I could hear their wings or maybe their energy (so fleeting) above the din...that is magic.