The poem begins with a small, sudden shock: two butterflies, joined together, hit the speaker's windshield on a highway in summer. The speaker rejects the idea that death can "play," yet the image lingers. From there the mind drifts to Chuang-tzu's butterfly dream and to a white butterfly hovering over the hard rock of an old volcano.
At Neys Point on Lake Superior, the speaker watches a white butterfly flutter over the water and sees two moments at once: the present and the billion-year-old lava beneath it. The poem calls this "one billion years of now," where life and death share the same dance. The mood is quiet, thoughtful, and a little awed. The speaker seems humbled rather than frightened, and the ending turns the landscape into a place of learning. The living and the dead become "teachers," and the speaker honors them with respect rather than grief.