bug’s-eye view

the antenna-twitch of a bug

in the descending shadow

of some colossal hand

-- Laird Barron,  The Imago Sequence (2007), p. 189

Fire/Flies

Fire    flies,

live    light;

flit and flicker

in the night.

Sleep   time

kiss and hug --

dream about

the lightning bug.

“Arrival and Departure” monostich

The cicadas in the garden  kept on rasping  their thin, silvery

praise of the heat

[-- Arthur Koestler, 1943]

Bug Saga

Behold!  It’s mighty  Wonderbug ^TM

who doth bestride this narrow leaf

like a colossus.

At sun-up, he sets out  from its eastern edge,

ceaselessly striving, striding,

and at sundown  arrives   at its western edge,

Tri-um-phant !

Cricket in the Kitchen

Cricket in the Kitchen

(all night long)

I’m singing  my little  song !!!

…   (!*!) …

………………

I’m singing  my little  song !!!

…   (!*!) …

………………

I’m singing  my little  song !!!

…   (!*!) …

………………

I’m singing  my little  song !!!

…   (!*!) …

………………

I’m singing  my little  song !!!

…   (!*!) …

………………

I’m singing  my little  song !!!

…   (!*!) …

………………

[… da capo al fine ]

Bonus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg79Q9rRIxM&feature=youtu.be

Bugs in Love

Out on the back deck, reading peacefully in the dappled sunlight, from time to time  laying down the book, and day-dreaming a bit.

Then all at once, from out the air,

two large and (what was that?) fast (faster!) large

(and ever larger, looming, as they rush   towards me    on)  

!bright!

butterflies,

stark yellow   and   bold black,

whirling in a rapid dance,

just inches from

my up-

turned face …

They come to hover above my head, in a frenzy of kineticized embrace.  I’m amazed, and alarmed by their quick proximity;  even a bit indignant at this, mm, public display of affection.  Get a room!

Then at once,     they       |   .    .     .  |     part   ……..

A brood of baby butterflies 

have just been gifted   expectation of life,

above my head.

They both fly off  to separate trees,   no doubt to catch their breath, and smoke a cigarette.

(ode to bug)

We here salute   the least of God’s creatures,

the  (humble bug),

beside whom   e’en the Humble Woodchuck

doth seem proud.

Nay,  but for the bug,

the Ladder of Nature  had collapsed,

lacking a footing.

Oft kroch ein Käfer kribbelkrab

Am hübschen Blümlein  auf und ab.

-- Wilhelm Busch

And here we have a little poem written by an actual bug.
(Here you can see him actually writing it.)

O Noes !!

O ...  Noes!  Da it-tle bug!

Bug  not  know!   Bug all confused!

Meb-beh   kit-teh    eat     da bug !!!

Allgone bug   go allgone !!!!!!   (runrunrun)

(Fragments of consciousness, like sparks --

nay   like  fireflies

in the dark …)

Thumbnail summary for the busy business-man:

All U really need 2 know about bugs

Flash!

Recent figures released by the Department of Agriculture

reveal that there remain only 934 Americans

who have yet to savor the pleasures

of the pistol-packing, wise-cracking

Murphy Brothers, P.I.s.

If you are among these unfortunate few,

make up for lost time here:

I Don't Do Divorce Cases

Murphy on the Mount.

[Update -- or rather, retrodate]
Cf. James Thomson's poem "Summer" (1727):
   the mighty chain of beings, lessening down
   from infinite perfection  to the brink
   of dreary nothing, desolate abyss...

(Comments Bug:  "Well, I like that !!")

Moral:  Do ye not look down  on Peter Paramecium !

.

bug

 bug

Microtheology

.

buzz,buzz

the humful bug

a lit-tle ti-ny part

of God’s Big Plan

.

Gabriel’s pep-talk to the bugs

We all know how Blessèd Saint Francis  preached to the beasts and birds.  A less-well-known episode  is the Archangel Gabriel’s sermonette to all bugkind, shortly after they were created (out of little clods of clay).

Gabriel, before the assembled multitudes:   Well! bug-buddies.  Great to see you all here.

Bugs:  (buzz)

Gabriel:  Now, have you all heard of the scala naturae?

Bugs (billions of blank looks -- blank even for bugs)

Gabriel:   Okay, didn’t think so.  Anyhow, scala naturae means “ladder of Nature”.  It is the scale and scheme of things.   It reaches all the way up to …. [here Gabriel raises his forefinger and nods significantly] and down to the very depths of Earth.

Now: --  House built on a weak foundation, will not stand -- oh no.  No?

(Bugs wag their antennae in agreement.)

Gabriel:  And a ladder would waver, that were not firmly planted on the ground.

Bugs (antennae tingle in anticipation;  collective held breath)

Gabriel:  That’s where you come in.

(Their little breasts swell with joy and gratitude, and they march off in their millions.  “We’ll be good bugs,” they vow.)

Bugburg: A Bird’s-Eye View

 

Bug.   *         A bug.  *

…    ……       ……..     Another bug.  *

…    …..      ……….

    A bug.   *

(And now we give equal time to the bug’s perspective:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2012/09/this-mornings-new-web.html

Spider Poem

 *     *     *

*     *

*

I’m in my web.

I made it myself.

*

*     *

 *     *     *

[Footnote:  Such sentiments, remarkably, extend even farther down the scala naturae;  as witness this:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2012/02/counting-blessings.html ]

A Butterfly Contemplates the Universe

     (((  …    ) bud (     …    ) bud (   …   ) bud (   …  )))

(True, he sees but a portion of the Whole;  yet so indeed do we.   Even among fully-grown Homo sapiens, there are some that never do contemplate such aspects of the universe as the intrinsic topology of four-manifolds, their whole narrow vision being restricted to the differential geometry of surfaces embedded in 3-space.)

The 5-H Club

Hazy, Hot, and Humid -- with highs in the hundreds.

“D.C. hits a record 104 degrees -- Today is the hottest day in June in 142 years of record-keeping.”

-- Washington Post

[Note -- not the hottest local June 29 on record;  the hottest June day tout court.]

Silver lining:  this hits the legislators where they live.  

Granted, one swallow does not a summer make, nor a data-point  a pattern;  but this does fit into a larger picture, meticulously laid-out by climatologists.   And since the yahoos understand nothing deeper than anecdotal evidence anyway -- nothing, really, beyond the argumentum ad baculum -- well, let them sweat a bit.

[Update 30 June 2012]  Aftermath:  1.5 million D.C.-area customers are without electricity.  (This happens a lot around here.)
Fortunately, the town where I live had the engineering smarts to bury the power lines.  We're fine.

On our little cul-de-sac, we did lose one fine upstanding tree, apparently in the prime of life, whom we shall miss.    My wife and I took an  early-Saturday-morning walk (the last point in the day -- forecast as a meteorological re-run of yesterday -- that such an outing will be bearable) and surveyed the damage on the path down to the lake;  I brought along a pair of loppers to help clear the way, feeling like a jungle-explorer with a machete.

Later, my wife went off to work, and I policed the lawn, gathering up the windthrow, and taking it to the back deck to deposit in the wheeled trashbin, which was lying on its side.  Devotees of this chronicle (reading it now aloud in the family circle around the fire, or rather, around the A/C) will recognize this useful object as the very barrel which, for over a week now, I have refrained from using, since a skillfully engineering spider (once again, we salute our engineers, whether they have two legs or eight) has been putting it to better use.    But now, rudely overturned by last night’s gale, that structure is no more.   Yet, reaching to return the refuse-bin to its normal use, I perceived that that same sleek-limbed green craftsman, had built another web, yet more wonderful than the last:  now spanning, not the sidelined opening, but, spurning the vertical, stretching from the bin’s uppermost edge  over to the deck-seat -- perfectly symmetrical, as horizontal as a bubble-level, and shining dewily in the morning sunlight.  With a sigh, I set the gleanings aside, to be dealt with later.

Artistically, and no doubt cynegetically, the work is a marvel:  yet, returning again to the ever-necessary engineering standpoint, its infrastructure is open to criticism.  For, whereas before, any non-toppling jostling of the trashbin would simply bear the internally spanning structure along with it  unharmed, now the least breeze will displace the bin -- of flimsy plastic -- with respect to the deck-bench, shredding the carefully-woven fabric, or bunching it as the case may be.

~

Just called my wife at the home where she works:  Though well north of D.C., they too are wholly without power, and at the mercy of the continuing heat-wave.

Which again brings up the subject of infrastructure.

Our current President entered office  calling for a massive shoulder-to-the-wheel surge on infrastructure.  And if Congress had had any sense (or indeed, if the electorate had had any sense, since their pressure does matter), our nation would have seen a revival of the CCC and WPA.  But several factors opposed this.

(1) The current credit-card culture of eating the seed corn -- nay, gorging on it, leaving the bills for the next generation, conveniently declaring bankruptcy pro re nata. 

(2) The general war on labor, and on organized labor in particular.

Now, the latter point is primarily a matter of traditional class warfare, which has existed since ancient times, never dying -- though sometimes dying down for a time, ever ready to be revived.  Yet there is a curious psychosocial dimension, peculiar to our age …

 [TBC ...]

[Update Sunday, 1 July]

“On top of heat wave, it may take a week for power to be restored.  Forecast: Still flirting with triple digits.”  -- The Washington Post.

Give us this day, our daily A/C -- which is working, thanks to the enterprise and foresight of our town's civil engineers.

[Update]  Turns out  what hit us was a derecho.  Nice to know it has a name.

The Scene at Noon

…bzz bzz  bzz bzz  bzz bzz  bzzz…

bees bees bees bees bees bees bees

beesbees beesbees beesbees beesbees

beesbeesbeesbeesbeesbeesbeesbeesbeesbeesbeesbees …

bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……………..

A Soft Touch

(1)

Hanging in the shadows beneath the sleepy eaves,

the petunia pot is very sad.

No rain for days, and none in the forecast.

I’ve watered her from the pitcher,

but have not set her out on the lawn to be sprinkled from the clouds.

“Cannot I go out for a sunbath?” she cries.

“Why must we always wait for rain?”

“Oh, well,

 okay,”

 I say.

(2)

Yet firm and stern  and inflexible of will  am I

when wielding the cruel clippers of iron,

trimming back the everywhichwaysoutspiraling tentacles of the hedge,

and its tentacular tangles, vine-entwined.

Truth to tell, this hedge was never a favorite,

and ever since Snowmageddon bent it double,

lo these several winters ago,

it has been rather an eyesore.

I’ve been trying to train it back straight,

by selective hedging,

with some success.

Standing apart  is an old plastic trash-can

where I normally place the cuttings 

before hauling them down to the compost-heap.

Only…

spanning its brim now  is a delicate web

of sheer perfection, concentric upon concentric strand,

and shimmering at its center, a slender green spider,

with eight shining eyes.

We behold each other, she and I.

Strictly from an engineering standpoint, we must concede

that the can’s aperture is as perfect a framework for stretching a web

as ever might be found in all Nature.

And the spider, appreciatively,  has done her very best work.

To disturb this, would be sacrilege.

So I sigh, and turn aside,

then lay the cuttings on the ground by the hedge,

like flowers on a loved-one’s grave.

~     ~     ~

[Update, three days later] 

She’s still there, dead center of the web.

Still sleekly green and brilliant.

And still hasn’t caught anything, so far as I can tell.

So patient; hasn’t moved.

Well, I can be patient too.

In God’s good garden

(1)

Around and about the flowertops,

the bees are as busy as a bee can be.

They flit from little bud to bud,

never lingering long,

as though frenzied with the wealth of possibilities.

Shivering deliciously, they sip the nectar.

Bending, carefully, I bless them each and each.

(2)

I’ve been reading a sort of combination text and memoir by an entomologist, called For Love of Insects.   Engagingly written, once you get past the title:  for though it’s difficult to love Insects,  it’s easy to love a bug.

Right at this moment, across the very piece of paper I am writing on,

a bug is crawling -- a bug that I love.

I let him do his crawlies,

and he lets me write.

We’re a little bit in love, I guess --

a bit just enough for a bug.

(3)

O dear, a deer -- too beautiful.

We stop, drop what we’re doing, and stare,

each astonished 

at the other’s loveliness.

And so, we imagine, did our Creator  on that day

stand back and gasp

at the newly-minted works of His own hands.

“This is really quite splendid,” said He,

“even for Me.”

Saga of a Bug

Once there was a bug.

He lived in a rug

where he was all snug.

The bug was very happy !

Monostich (XXXX)

Butterflies in Love, round and (round and) ROUND and 

((round and))

.

.

) ! * ! (

.

.

Monostich (XXXIX)

~

~ ~  Busy busy   Butter-fly   ~  tending this bud  and that one  and that   ~  ~

~

[For another butter-luscious monostich, click here.]