Cardinal

[Tiger the Lion]

Hi Paul, this is interesting and I've come back to it a few times to see if it reveals anything new.

I also made a catholic church connection at first, which I think is inevitable (and not a bad thing). I was thinking that if you had the second line as a question (or first and second together) then it alters the dynamic of the next four lines, changing it into a more direct accusation if you know what I mean.
I like the wordplay between 'rare' and the 'commonly' flittering, also the 'flittering' is an interesting word choice, I like how it works.
I'm not having any problem with the repetition of 'before', I was wondering if 'arise' could be used instead of 'rise'.

The way that I'm reading this it could work for the catholic church cardinal, it could work for the bird called a cardinal  as well as the butterfly and other things metaphorical and all, and that's a good thing.

The last thing I will say - is there any room for 'your eminence' or 'eminent', perhaps sarcastically??? 

Cheers for the read, it has made me think,

Mark

If I could find a way to squeeze "eminence" in, I certainly would. Will toy with it. I did flipflop with "rise" and "arise" but in the end decided "rise" was more birdlike. I wish the poem were a little more subtle but the title is necessary and maybe weighs a little heavy.