Derek Johnson
Field Notes

The Butterfly

Shenandoah · late August 2026

The photographer's crouched shadow falls across sunlit rock as a blue morpho butterfly rests nearby, wings open.
Heading back from the falls, on a long, uphill climb, a blue morpho landed in my path and didn't leave. I got close enough as it spread its wings — my own shadow crouched over the rock, camera raised, and for a moment the only thing moving in the frame was color. There's no picture of the falls from that day. There's this beauty instead.