Random Thought

No species but man, so far as is known, unaided by circumstance or climate change, has ever extinguished another, and certainly no species has ever devoured itself, an accomplishment of which man appears quite capable.

— Peter Matthiessen

Mom made me do it

Mom dragged me out to the nether regions of the family farm one fine day in late May as she needed help learning how to take macro shots with her camera.  There, upon the dead remains of the underground house once envisioned as the xenogere family homestead for years to come, we chanced upon a bit of native flora, one lively plant called sensitive brier (a.k.a catclaw brier, sensitive vine littleleaf mimosa, native mimosa; Mimosa nuttallii, or sometimes Mimosa microphylla).

I first introduced you to this plant with the last photo shown in this post.  Here are a few others.

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Yet something continually drew me back to that original photo.  My eyes wanted to see something more clearly which I had not seen before, at least not with any degree of clarity.

So I went back to that image.  Sure enough, hidden inconspicuously in one tiny spot I stumbled upon this small creature.

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And as I studied the remaining images, I finally reveled in the discovery of one clear picture that showed precisely what the camera had seen but that my eyes had completely missed.

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Without any hesitation, I recognized immediately the tiny syrphid who’d been busy with its own business while I ignorantly photographed it as though it didn’t exist.  This, poppets, is a fly.  More specifically, and despite its attempt to conceal itself beneath the camouflage of a predator, you’re looking at an example of Toxomerus marginatus.

These wee and winged beings are difficult to catch with the naked eye simply because they’re so small.  Too often, and certainly as was the case with me, they flit about effortlessly in our field of vision, yet they do so almost invisibly.

‘The Beloved’: What life shall your flesh wear?

In love do you find contentment?  In love do you caress repose?  Or in the most magical of emotions do you, like so many others, don the robes of awareness, of compassion, of worry, of heartbreak, of fatigue?  Tell me, dearest friend, if you are indeed a true lover, what life shall your flesh wear, for does not the body live only as happily as the anguished soul allows?

The shore and I are lovers, drawn together by desire and pulled apart by the wind. I come from beyond the blue dusk to mix the silver of my foam with the gold of his sand. I cool the heat of his heart with my mouth. At dawn I recite the law of passion into the ears of my lover, and he gathers me to his breast. In the evening I chant the prayer of longing, and he draws near.

[. . .]

In the silence of the night, when the phantoms of sleep have embraced all creatures, I watch, sometimes chanting, sometimes whispering. Woe is me, for watching by night has laid me waste. But I am a lover, and the essence of love is wakefulness.

This is my life, and that which is my life I must do.

Phantoms of the night breach the day

Last night the storms billowed in under the cover of darkness.  They had visited upon us great sorrows throughout the fullness of the previous night, and again around ten last evening they arrived with violence and torrents.  Like shadow ghouls hiding betwixt the earth and stars, they came in fits and starts, magnificent phantoms of lightning bellowing their war cries through the air in tremendous claps of thunder, and with them they brought more rain.

A tumultuous sleep did I grasp to my breast through the onslaught.  Even as my body desperately begged for rest, fatigued as it was from a long week of toiling labor, I awoke constantly to the sound of windows rattling, electrified air screaming in deafening roars, and showers pelting the outside of the house as fervent gusts raged.

Toss and turn, I did, for even as such events ring in my ears like so many lullabies, the angry skies saw fit to launch vehement attacks in a steady progression that lasted most of the night.

And today?

Ah, but could we wait yet another six hours…

Such a thing will not be, however, for even now the heavens unleash angry words from dark, threatening clouds.  They roil and boil, nature’s own black magic taken form in a potion made of air and water and energy.  And intent.

I feel the air upon my skin like a wet tee shirt dipped in warmth.  The humidity remains high, much higher than normal, its portrait a behemoth of churning shades of gray tossed haphazardly throughout the sky.  I find individuals amongst these celestial beings, yet I also see them questing to join one another so that they might become something more, something stronger, something bigger, something angrier and more powerful and…

Well, and more dangerous.

We have yet to clear the flood warning held over our heads for two weeks, one now extended until it is canceled rather than until a specific time.

There exists not one bit of land which does not cave under the weight of the lightest of feet, a mushy substance once called ground that even now seems an entirely different thing, a soft, perplexing thing long passed being wet earth.

What brings Nature upon her angry steeds this afternoon?

More storms.  More rain.

What tempest now rages against us?  What ethereal beast now unleashes its angry tirades on this world?  What tearful leviathan sees not the harm its lamentations cause?