|
Mosquitoes
|
They are buzzing in my ears hovering in and out of peripheral vision, I kill them without compunction knowing every ferned and mushroomed dent in the low, flat ground will nursery millions more to feed my musical friends, the frogs, and my totems, little dragons, the lizards. I am smug in sleeves and jeans and netted head, when they whirr in confusion but cannot reach my edible, blood-warm ears. In my screened keep, I survey the riches of a realm few dare or care to invade, except the mosquitoes and I, and I am prepared for siege. I watched the boiling and frothing thunderheads driving in on wheels of lightning I felt the sweet, cold wind before the squall breathe life-promise to the land. I saw the sudden storm excite the palmettos, inspiring them to speak in tongues and quiver and shake their palmate leaves. I shared the following rainbow with no one but God, (and the mosquitoes, who care only for the puddles.) Wildflowers beaded with raindrops are richer than any diamond-set ruby or sapphire. Sunlight and shade on the grass, finer than any caliph's carpet. Bright birds and butterflies, lovelier dancers than the Tsar's ballet. I will own it all for a short season, like a faerie dream, and I need only repel the mosquito armies. What net can I wear when I'm in my own world again to defend against the buzz that sucks the blood from moments when I ought to pause and give thanks for beauty? How do I repel the daily demands that would drive the poetry from my hand? 8/23/01, Dupuis Management Area, Lake Okeechobee |
|
Everglades ballad In the Pines Homo Pyrotechnicus Watching the Shuttle The Purple Gallinule Piney Woods Sugar Mosquitoes Nothing Out There |
|
|
