The title blends into the first line. I wasn't prepared for that on the second read. I know the title informs the poem, but I was so struck with the first line: "A real one wouldn't need one" because the construction makes sense, but the line break makes me focus on "one."
The butterfly is one
The parachute is one
This is followed up with further clarification of the set-up, "but the one Nathan draws surely does:" this statement make me think that Nathan is someone young and close to the speaker. What's also important with this line is that it focuses on Nathan being a creator who has a belief that a butterfly needs a parachute in this particular drawing:
four oblongs the size and color of popsicles,
green apple, toasted coconut and grape,
flanked, two per side, by billowing valentine hearts,
In a frame of Scotch tape.
Even though the picture is that of a butterfly with parachute note how the descriptions seem to revolve around food "popsicles," "green apple," "toasted coconut," "grape" which makes the creation come out a bit more saccharine taste and visually wise -- very sweet comparisons and add on top of that "billowing valentine hearts' and the image seems very much like a love vessel juxtaposed with the fragility of "in a frame of Scotch tape."
"Alive, it could stay off the floor / for a few unaerodynamic minutes" the usage of unaerodynamic brings the reader back from the saccharine to something more stable, reasonable, and a bit snarky. This creation is alive in flying for a few seconds, "thrown as a paper airplane, for one or two more."
Very sensibly, therefore,
our son gave it something, not to keep it apart
from the ground forever, but rather to make a safe descent.
The perspective shifts if the creation can't fly then at least it can make a safe descent. The mention of Nathan being the speaker's son makes this statement feels like the speaker is proud of the "sensible" addition to the son made. Then comes the didactic part:
When we ask that imagination discover the limits
of the real
world only slowly,
maybe this what we meant.
What is meant? What we create and maybe not necessary for example, the butterfly with a parachute, is just imagination discovering the limits of the real world. What is wrong with sensible protection when something has wings? Practically, something might be lost -- like the ability to fly more seconds, but what is gained is an outlet of imagination and press upon the borders of what we think is read, even if it isn't practical.
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