Looking through the Insect Archives, I realized that grasshoppers remind me of childhood, of hot walks on the pasture and long afternoons in the yard. Sitting in my quiet office, I can almost hear them. The click as they leap away and the receding buzz of wings, over and over again. These photos make me wish for tall itchy grass and hot dry wind, for a few hours of summer to spend with long departed friends.
My day is too short, my list too long. Books and projects tug at my attention, while bills and guilt lurk in every shadow. I wonder if this is how sparrows feel as they forage and flirt, keeping their constant predator alert…
Today has been almost summer-like. Very warm, very breezy, and very sleepy. A paper wasp worked under the eaves, a damselfly hunted in the irises, and something mantis-like prowled through the hydrangea. I did small, invisible chores in the house and in my office. Now I’m ready to find a quiet corner, curl up with the cats, and open the new book on my nightstand. Page one…
In case you’re wondering, the book is Rocks of Ages by Stephen Jay Gould.
It was a beautiful day for a walk with friends, and Norfolk Botanical Garden provided a beautiful setting. Warm sun, gentle breeze, and acres of flowers. I didn’t see many bees and butterflies, but there were plenty of turtles. And geese. Even a pair of nesting eagles…
Science
Our questions sprout
Like brambles
Dense with unseen truths
Quivering and tense as rabbits
Flushed into the open
When spoken aloud
Darting across the tongue
A disturbance in the listener’s ear
That flees barely glimpsed
Back into conjecture
Understanding a footprint
Of what might have been alive
What tore its warmth free of thorns
And escaped into possibility
Leaving only the suggestion
Of what was hiding
Safe as a copse
As a thicket
Amid the sprawling undergrowth of science
Pricking with the need to be known
Rae Spencer 