We’ve climbed up Darwin’s ladder
of Natural Selection,
the bug and I together,
toward evolutionary perfection,
but I ponder our relative states:
who has the higher trajection,
the one with legs and wings,
or the one stuck in this election?
Category Archives: bugs
October 18.20: Coping
In stillness
the leaves,
in silence
the shadows,
maybe a bug,
burrowing,
crackles,
sighs,
tummy-scratches,
sleeps.
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg
and to Fort Harrison State Park, Indianapolis.
October 12.20: Coping
A driven, fevered
bee be he,
zigging, zagging
drunkenly;
mead of autumn,
sweet and heady,
makes his skinny legs
unsteady,
wobbily resolved
in year’s decline
to buzz each flower
an Auld Lang Syne.
October 4.20: Coping
If I breathe,
will I hurt the air,
will I break the moon,
shatter, tear
this moment
frail, silvern,
when crickets whisper
Chopin nocturne?
September 26.20: Coping
In bright foreshadow
does autumn sun
frost the amethyst;
then does the butterfly know
to kiss it goodbye.
With thanks to photographer Mary Jo Bassett.
September 22:20: Coping
It seems to me
there’s an obvious plot
to get my goat
(which is got a lot).
How else explain
these mortal remains,
matted and framed,
among the day’s banes?
A villainous move,
a deliberate ploy,
to irritate, vex,
to taunt and annoy.
There was nothing to do
but take all apart
and grouse at the bug
who thought he was art.
August 12.20: Coping
Morning came
too quietly,
neither chirp nor trill,
but only cicada’s
serrated drone.
A very timid cricket
tuned his small pipe.
There I stood,
knee-deep in July,
prickly and unsure,
so restless was the quiet.
Now the dark of August nights
and no firefly winks.
The Green Heron blats
like fallow French horn
once or twice a day,
and maple leaves,
scorched,
bleed at their edges.
Do I imagine
the urgency?
Time is out of sorts,
as am I.
February 18.20
Spring is imminent
I have the certain feeling:
behold the season’s first
spider on the ceiling.
(Ick.)
September 25.19
On a bland and barren slab of clay
something delicate and fine —
did it touch my path by accident
or was it by design?
A lot of things take on deeper meaning these days, dear reader. I am given much to think about. My grandchildren spent the night with me this past weekend; my fifteen-year-old granddaughter is now a vegetarian because of her convictions. I am trying to reduce plastic in my life. My own aging body tells me daily nothing is forever. A lone butterfly seems to block my way in angry silence. Just my imagination, right?
September 7.19
Gather ye pollen
while ye may
in warm and bright
September day.
Tender zest,
to flower,
to seed —
thus does garden
(and life)
proceed.
With apologies to Robert Herrick.
