Nature's Place

On that paperbark tree, where big little creatures can be found in peril for their life. … It looked like a wasp at first, just the colours.

Maybe it’s something about the other creatures that inhabit the tree, or that parasitise it, that causes some to be born broken.

As with the preying mantis from a week ago, this had something wrong with it. The wings wouldn’t fill out, she couldn’t fly.

With wings undeveloped, not pumped up for flight, she wasn’t going anywhere. And she was having a hard time with the ants.

She fell from the tree, to the ground, evading those ubiquitous ants, so I picked her up. Give her a chance to do some living, why not.

I didn’t leave her this time, taking her home in a jar I keep in the car, where she lived a few days longer than she otherwise would.

I gave her sweet water and left some nature with her, a bit of bark and a few clover flower heads. She liked it on my warm hand.

Pollen on her face … she got used to me quick enough, and lived the life she could, undaunted. No sign of any predators intruding.

She seemed to pick up at times, displaying enough vitality I thought it might just correct her wings. But such magic was not to be.

But still … a proud little thing, little messenger of the nature gods of pollination and marvel. Marvel, who designs these little wonders.

I worked her for a while, then she was gone … passed, as all things do. This is her epitaph … pictures of nature in a world in decline.

Man has gone mad, he just hasn’t realised it yet. Even mad is relative here.