Tag Archives: insects

Lost and Found

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spider and bug

The spider works quickly to get the larger insect wrapped within its web. The insect doesn’t struggle; it may be dead. But the web is in tatters and shakes violently every time the spider moves. I watch the action, hoping the spider secures its hard-won meal before the web gives out.

Progress is slow, and my attention wavers. When I check back, the spider is sitting motionless in its sparse web, and the big catch-of-the-day is nowhere in sight. Has it fallen from the web? After all the spider’s hard work? I am compelled to make it right, find the bug. Maybe I can stick it back on the web somehow.

I part the plants beneath the spider’s web, and sure enough, there it is. Still wrapped in webbing. Still dead. But… moving? Two small ants have taken a hold of the hapless bug and are hauling it off as their own pre-wrapped prize. I am too late. Nature has already made it right.

nature’s web pulled taught
broken strands and gaping holes
mend on, weavers, mend

dVerse Haibun Monday — Lost and Found: Nature’s Magic

Off the Wall

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Forty scientists and engineers and
computer programmers toil each year,
a million bucks per annum spent,
a decade now, with price so dear.

Another study of fifty years,
such value held in answers sought,
in labs where winged subjects die,
though scientists claim it’s not for aught.

The topic: vast data processed in flight,
motion and movement sensitivity;
the interconnections of brain nerve cells
that exceed computer capabilities.

Complex, for sure, but fifty years?
Such lengthy studies in part explained;
the task of handling small electrodes
when attaching them to house fly brains.

Now, I may not a scientist be,
but the question I would like explored
is why flies crash into window panes
instead of flying out open doors.

NaPoWriMo Challenge, Day 30 (final day): write a poem that engages with a strange and fascinating fact.

 

Between You and Me

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11

screen

 

I’m so thankful for the screen on the window.
I don’t want you invading my living space.
I know you’re part of the ecosystem and all that,
but truth be told, you really creep me out.

I mean, really creep me out.
As in, whenever I see one of you
I just want to squish you, even if
you are doing me no harm whatsoever.

But I guess I should be more magnanimous than that.
Live and let live, you know?
After all, it was you who planted the corn
that I’m going to nibble on for breakfast.

Here’s hopping that you don’t find your way
through the screen today.

The Daily Post daily prompt: Screen

NaBloPoMo ~ NoMore

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We made it! It’s the last day of November, and the last day of the 2015 National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) challenge. I succeeded in posting to this blog daily for 30 days and — as promised — I didn’t resort to regaling you with endless photos of my cat and dog. Well, maybe I did. But they’re so stinkin’ cute!

No More

 

Most of the time it was fun, sometimes tedious. It certainly did force me to crank up my creative juices, and to acknowledge that I don’t have to wait around like some mutt underfoot begging for table scraps, hoping my muse tosses a few ideas my way.

Okay, so it’s never been that bad. My usual writing process is that some notion begins buzzing around my head like an annoying insect. I roll up a metaphorical newspaper and swat it. When it falls to the ground, I poke at it to see if there’s any life left in it. If there is, then maybe I write about it. The metaphorical insect, that is.

If it’s a real insect, I try to get the dog to catch it and either escort it outside or ensure its demise. He usually just sniffs at it and walks away. As does the insect.

insect2

Outdoors: live and let live.

 

Outdoors, my bug philosophy is “live and let live.” Indoors, the rule is if it won’t go away or if it creeps me out, it dies. Kind of like a blind date. But I digress.

There aren’t many insects flying around my part of the world at this time of year. Except stink bugs. And who wants to write about a stink bug, metaphorical or otherwise?

insect1

Indoors: sic ’em, Chules!

 

The point of all this is to say that I will write with less frequency from now on, that I’ll try not to write if I have nothing to say, and that you probably shouldn’t go on a blind date with me.

Thanks for seeing me through this month, and for reading each and every one of my posts. You did that, right?