Helper Bug

The day woke with a thunderstorm just before dawn. I was up, moving a few items into the garage that had been left out: sawhorses, tools, a box of papers. The first rain drops were large, spattering my shoulders, each drop landing on the metal roof of the house and garage with an discernible thwack. A flash of lightning followed less than a full second later clarified the groggy mind. For as long as I can remember, I've counted the seconds...one thousand one, one thousand two...between the flash and the sound, the size of the gap providing an estimate of how far an approaching storm might be. This one was about to roll into town from the south.

A Saturday morning rain is a reader's delight. I started out with a short nature essay by the Welsh writer Llewelyn Powys, 'The First Fall of Snow' from his book Earth Memories. "Do we retain in our round skulls, in our square skulls, in our narrow, hatchet-shaped skulls certain subconscious recollections of the appalling struggles in far-off glacial periods?" From Wales in winter, I turned to pre-WWII England, reading the first nineteen sections of Louis MacNeice's Autumn Journal, an account, in the form of a long poem, of the last five months of 1938. "Now it is morning again, the 25th of October, / In a white fog the cars have yellow lights; / The chill creeps up the wrists, the sun is sallow, / The silent hours grow down like stalactites."

After the morning reading, the remainder of the day was spent on some home renovations. On one of my many trips outside to inside, a small helper bug must have hitched a ride. I noticed later as it ambled along the newly installed shower door, as if inspecting the work. Recently, I'd been a little envious of some nearby observations of the remarkably colored Smooth Green Snake, a snake I've never encountered. But this Pale Green Assassin Bug assuaged that small amount of discontent.

Publicado el octubre 22, 2017 02:47 MAÑANA por scottking