”Studious as a butterfly in a parking lot”
(John Ashbery, ‘The Other Tradition’, from Houseboat Days, reprinted in Selected Poems, Carcanet Press 1985, p. 208, line 23)
and what would one do, if one were thus? Gone astray but eager to learn what’s there, wið ample thyngs to discouere?
Park =”to stop and leave (a vehicle) temporarily; a piece of open land in a town with public amenities”;
Lot =”an assigned or apportioned share; an area of land; any object, such as a straw or slip of paper, drawn from others at random to make a selection or choice”;
butter =”An animal that butts.”
err =”go astray”
fly =”to travel over (an area of land or sea) in an aircraft”
A series of choices, which park, temporarily, as if to stop for a while, or being in a lot [of land] which attempted to be a park; were about to become a park,
‘Being a butterfly, she had not expected her lot [in life] to be lived in a parking lot, but given no choice, she adapted to her share & approached her lot with deliberation; in attempt to study it with great care, occasionally stopping and leaving it there, going away, then coming back and picking it up,’