LITTLE PRETTY THINGS
As insects go, lacewings seem to have nothing to catapult
them into significance, most of the time just showing off
for the centipedes and sawflies. I imagine they envy
wasps their ability to make a house for themselves,
and boll-weevils their cottony usefulness. It seems
lacewings have nothing to do but be beautiful,
and so are dangerous. I’ve known a few
of their human counterparts, and have been fooled
by their slender bodies, the golden alertness
of their eyes, and for a while have forgiven a meanness,
even a cruelty, at their core.
Lacewings suck the bodily fluids
of aphids and other soft bodied creatures,
and devour their unhatched eggs. I suppose cruelty
has an evolutionary purpose, but whatever it is
I’ve learned to be wary of little pretty things
that exhibit it.
I can see some perverse nobility
in the Asian Tiger mosquito that needs nothing
more than a dab of blood from a few of us
before it lays itself down to die. And the behavior
of the Praying Mantis after sex has become part
of the inhuman comedy. I hear that in some cultures
lacewings are called stinkflies because of an odor
they emit to deter enemies. I don’t know who
or what these enemies are, but I hope enough exist
to save this world from creatures that stink and murder
and look graceful, gorgeous even, in the doing.
—from Rattle #60, Summer 2018
Tribute to Athlete Poets
__________
Stephen Dunn: “The poetry that ends up mattering speaks to things we half-know but are inarticulate about. It gives us language and the music of language for what we didn’t know we knew. So a combination of insight and beauty. I also liken the writing of it to basketball—you discover that you can be better than yourself for a little while. If you’re writing a good poem, it means you’re discovering things that you didn’t know you knew. In basketball, if you’re hitting your shots, you feel in the realm of the magical.” (web)
