Monthly Archives: March 2010

Burning in the fire

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I wonder what it feels like…  To feel like someone cares…  Like there’s someone for me out there…

I long to take flight.  The lonely nights grasp at me clumsily, embracing me like an unwelcome lover stumbling gracelessly over my body.  Pulling the sloppy courtier’s flesh about me causes a chill.  How unwelcome it is.  Are not the hard days enough for me to endure?  Must I be violated in such a way that transcends the agony of survival?

In aloneness I suffer long.  Can you deny the same?

Battle scars eternally mark me.  They are evidence of heartaches past, the wounds left by dark foes sequestered to memory, perhaps even detritus of spirit wars long forgotten.  I touch them absentmindedly and trace their forms with my fingers.  They are badges and medals to me, proof that I endured the pain’s coming.  They count for lives and loves lost.  They represent broken hearts.  They exist as proof that I feel, have felt, and will feel again.

I look this way and that, and everywhere I turn I see lives giving way.  They crumble under the weight of living, unable to withstand.  Despite their best efforts to make right what is wrong, too many fall before their own hearts.  They lack the strength for what they need.

Am I next?

Just in time the fire illuminates, hot flames licking all about me.  They dance with me, for me, around me, and through me.  They touch me gently; they touch me roughly.  Heat unbearable burns away the black dross of doubt and uncertainty.  Drawn forth, it leaves pure mettle behind it.

I burn in the flames.  The me that pains my being is caught in lighted inferno, giving way so the desired self might rise high on gossamer wings.  My way is ablaze with the shining light of the fire’s intensity.  Though they may burn and though they may bring pain, these tongues of flaming fury work their hardest to bring me good.  Can its embrace be called experience?

Blinded by ferocious bright flames, deafened by their hearty roar, my soul’s journey from cause to effect is followed on faith alone.

I am me.  My only self is I.

Floating above piles of ashes from my former self, do they brush against me?  Or is it I against them?  I am unsure whence the motion comes.

My flight is solitary, and I know not how this is being surrounded by those I love.  Only for the living can such poignant bonds engender the loneliness of learning.

I hear them like the voices of golden ones singing.  They are those like me, those who love me, those with whom life gains meaning.  They are with me.  They are for me.  They never betray me their counsel or camaraderie.

If not drawn to the flame like a moth, how then shall I find them?  And they me?  The true me that is, the me filtered by fire to be real, a manifestation of what is within.

I face the flames ready.

I wonder what it feels like…  To feel like someone cares…  Like there’s someone for me out there…

The slowly opened

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A song whispers on cool air with the perfume of a thousand blossoms.  Lavender and gold and crimson and white intertwine with a rainbow infinitely diverse.  They paint meadow and field in the colors of spring.

A spotted cucumber beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata) perched on the edge of rough gumweed (Grindelia scabra) (20080921_12634)

Each petal reaches, each rising star shines grand and new.  These bright lives climb from realms I have never traveled but which are known to me.  And they seek the sky with faces upturned.

A black and gold bumble bee (Bombus auricomus) licking tiny droplets of dew from the blossom of purple bindweed (a.k.a. cotton morning glory; Ipomoea trichocarpa) (20080921_12798)

Just as the slowly opened rise from earthen slumber, so too does an army of faithful who find in the coming warmth a dance that steps only to the music of flowers.

Syrphid flies (a.k.a. hover flies; Toxomerus marginatus) mating atop a common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) (2009_03_08_012853)

It is a love story, this song, one of powerful longings and intimate embraces.  It likewise is a chorus of endings, an operatic aria that each voice must sing only in its season.

A western honey bee (a.k.a. European honey bee; Apis mellifera) on white clover (Trifolium repens) (2009_03_21_013732)

The kaleidoscope of winter’s gray falls before the advance of these voices now filling the heavens, and russet is washed away by waves of verdant song.

A Gulf fritillary (a.k.a. passion butterfly; Agraulis vanillae) with its tongue out as it flies toward western ironweed (a.k.a. Baldwin’s ironweed; Verbesina baldwinii) (2009_07_09_026290)

With each new voice, a cacophony of dancers shakes the ground with spirited waltzes and lively tangos, for every singer demands a select audience, a diverse group of listeners who perform at the behest of their favorite soloist.

A Gulf fritillary (a.k.a. passion butterfly; Agraulis vanillae) feeding on western ironweed (a.k.a. Baldwin’s ironweed; Verbesina baldwinii) (2009_07_09_026298)

I find the silence of this song deafening, the loudest music I will never hear.

A large milkweed bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus) resting atop green antelopehorn (a.k.a. green milkweed, spider milkweed or antelope-horn milkweed; Asclepias viridis) (20080921_12670)

For now comes the time of the slowly opened and those who must needs be with them.  In all my years I have never tired of this presentation.  And in all my years, I watch for their voices and listen for the dance it portends.

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Photos (all from White Rock Lake):

[1] A spotted cucumber beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata) on an unidentified bloom.  The compound flower remains a mystery to me.  But I’m not the only Texan wondering what this plant is (e.g., here).  Introduced?  So easy to identify that it’s left out of all the guides we have access to?  It’s a unique plant and a unique blossom, so it’s not like I’m mistaking it for something else.  Well, I’ve said before that flowers vex me more than any other kind of life.  Hence this one goes on the diabolical challenge pile for later identification.  (And it’s probably something so evident and so common that I’ll kick myself for not recognizing it.)  [Update: I have since identified the flower as rough gumweed (Grindelia scabra).]

[2] A black and gold bumble bee (Bombus auricomus) licking dew from the blossom of purple bindweed (a.k.a. cotton morning glory; Ipomoea trichocarpa).  I’d watched the bee flit from bloom to bloom where it slipped inside for a sip of nectar and a spot of pollen.  It then paused on this flower for a few minutes.  Only when I approached did I realize it was licking tiny droplets of dew from the flower.

[3] Syrphid flies (a.k.a. hover flies; Toxomerus marginatus) mating atop a common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale).

[4] Western honey bee (a.k.a. European honey bee; Apis mellifera) visiting white clover (Trifolium repens).

[5] Gulf fritillary (a.k.a. passion butterfly; Agraulis vanillae) with its tongue hanging out as it approaches western ironweed (a.k.a. Baldwin’s ironweed; Verbesina baldwinii).

[6] The same Gulf fritillary (a.k.a. passion butterfly; Agraulis vanillae) feeding hungrily after landing on the western ironweed (a.k.a. Baldwin’s ironweed; Verbesina baldwinii).

[7] A large milkweed bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus) standing atop green antelopehorn (a.k.a. green milkweed, spider milkweed or antelope-horn milkweed; Asclepias viridis).