selfish sacrifices and meandering fast bugs

[amuse]

she
laughed at me
i laughed -you're crazy she-
too
-said-
well who didn't know that
but it was a "meandering
fast bug"
fat, black, scuttling every which way, did it
think a forest fire was chasing it,
that my eyes could burn, was
it smelling something god
only -or meandering fast bugs- know
what?
running like a clown about to fall
offa the stilts
running running
the little red spider on the wall,
microscopic
almost, does it eat
microbes? flora or fauna? i can barely
see it
so small, terrified when i get too near
and i'm ashamed ashamed
that i wanted to destroy it because
it's red and has eight legs
would i make friends with it if
we had more time, would
i love its dinner, too?
for that matter, virii, would
i quash 'em if i had the chance, saw
them up close, or would i love them
love them with all my might
even hiv/aids
just because i'm big doesn't mean i'm strong,
helpless and weak sometimes
like i can be hurt not by your size, but by my fear
why isn't love the biggest thing about me
today?
do all pidgeons have red feet? i think they do
some are
beautiful, white feathers
i've even seen brown ones here in this city,
and they aren't flying rats, no
they're lost, don't even move that fast for a bird
city pollution has ****ed with their cerebellum,
sometimes the car gets to them before they reach the side-
walk you never see that in the country
well, not really.
not in california where the air quality laws
are enforced with everyone's dime if they live and breathe
they'd tax the birds too if they could
the squirrels and 'possums,
god 'possums are huge, like big mice i remember
how scared the one on my
porch was the night i heard it
eating cat food
just terrified of me
and the little green blugs
(ooh bugs but you know what i mean
even if i'm crazy, wait - aren't you too? no, your loss)
in the garden eating chard, well
they can have it better them than the caterpillars thank
god they turn into butterflies,
beauteous beyond belief or we'd kill 'em
all
why is it on my computer
does this look like
a garden? no i thought not
is that why it's a baby, 1/100th the size
of grandpa in the garden
i can still see the black spots on it's greenback
though, and i want it to live, want to see it fly away
from my computer to
the ginkgo tree or
wherever is best for
it no
keep it inside
it might be eaten if it leaves my
room might be smashed on your monitor
might leave me and my newfound compassion
rolling in the dirt,
kissing the instinct for death
before i fully begin to live.

[Koa]

Ouch... it seems like a big rant ;)
There are some good effective sentences, and good concepts like the spider thing that you want to kill only cos you're bigger (I hate insects, even reading that was painful!)


just because i'm big doesn't mean i'm strong,
helpless and weak sometimes
like i can be hurt not by your size, but by my fear
why isn't love the biggest thing about me
today?




even if i'm crazy, wait - aren't you too? no, your loss)

Ehehe, the greatest. :D:D:D

[amuse]

yeah i see what you mean, i meant to only write about the bugs, then all this other stuff flooded in, you know how it is.
teehee, don't know where that crazy bit came from, i liked it too, lol. :D

[Miranda]

The thing is once you get compassionate about bugs, you are lost...cos you can't keep a plant in your garden that won't be eaten.. as for snails...why do they come out at night and litter the paths after rain, when you can't hardly avoid them? I hate crunching them under foot and leaving them in a heap of slime..I feel so guilty. Sometimes I try to fix the shells back together again, if its not too broken. Do you think they mend? I dont know. But once you get compassionate about small fry - where do you draw the line? I didnt want to put stuff on the patio to kill the weeds that come up between the slabs cos it might have killed the ants as well...Crazy? It goes from bad to worse. What about flies..sometimes I kill them, sometimes not - cos we once had a rabbit that they laid eggs in..that hatched and the maggots began to eat the rabbit alive. It was horrible.

I really can't stand spiders either and I used to kill them..but not now, cos like you, I realised my fear is not a good enough reason to take it's life away..cos its life is just as important to it, as my life is to me..and as you say, just cos we are bigger, doesn't give us the right to kill.

I like your poem Amuse...even though I have never seen a possum (don't know what one looks like even), or a ginko tree.

[amuse]

http://www.opossum.org/
very surprised it was, too, when i opened the door and looked outside! i was most amazed that it was eating under the porch light. couldn't tell you which of us was more shocked!

i like your comments, Miranda. thanks for taking the time. terrible about your rabbit, my condolences. :(

oh, the ginkgo trees:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kwanten/photos.htm & http://www.xs4all.nl/~kwanten/newyork.htm they're stunning in the fall...

[emily655321]

Possums are so cute. :) Very bad at getting out of the road though. They try to run with traffic. :( *thunk*

[Miranda]

Thank you for the info Amuse..I am now more educated than I was and know what a possum is. I have never seen one before I visited the link..nor a Ginko tree which are very beautiful arn't they. But what I now want to know is er..what is a 'roof rat?'

[verybaddmom]

oh, and miranda, the pesticide that you use for your weeds in your sidewalk will actually do more damage to YOU than you know. i personally would stay very very far away from it. if you are going to do it, you will probably use roundup (which is made of glyphosate) and is owned by monsanto (till the end of this year when their patent runs out). anyhow, imo, anything constructed and marketed by monsanto has the hand of evil on its shoulder, no matter how beneficial it may seem. i could (if you actually wanted me to) explain to you on a cellular level how glyphosate damages your system...
try boiling water on the weeds in the cracks. and for bugs, try steaming rhubarb leaves and then spraying the bugs with that liquid (do NOT ingest yourself)...
anyhow, whatever you decide, good luck!

[emily655321]

Cool, VB. Actually, if we killed the weeds in our yard there would be nothing left but dirt. :p But I'm very glad to know about the water/rhubarb for future reference. :thumbs_up :banana:

[verybaddmom]

rhubarb leaves are actually very poisonous, as are tomato plants. any combination of these, cooked with say....hot peppers and/or lots and lots of garlic are good for crushing the life out of any soft bodied insect that is devouring YOUR garden crop. i am also a huge fan of using other insects to control pests in your garden. many people have heard about ladybugs and their ability to eat all your garden pests, but they are actually sort of overrated as they are hard to release (if you buy them). encarsia formosa is a great bug to buy (if you have aphid trouble, which anyone who grows hibiscus or roses will) and they usually can be purchased at any garden center as a pupa on a cardboard card. you hang it in an infested plant, and they will hatch out and feast till they can feast no more. then, they move on to your neighbors garden, provided they dont become food for your birds. totally natural, and perpetuates the circle of life....yay for IPM.

anyhow, amuse, i apologize for stealing your thread....here it is if you want it back :blush: your poem rocks, as always!

[amuse]

no, that's fine/thank you. actually, i was thinking i could've used the cardboard board thingy when i got aphids on my basil. very emotional plant. droopy if i didn't treat it just so every moment...

[verybaddmom]

ahhh...right. like a ficus. terribly melodramatic plants..

[Miranda]

Thanks VBM for your advice..only..I couldn't put boiling water on my patio cracks...cos er..it scald the poor ants. But..I did put some salt on them and it seemed to make them shrivel a bit..the weeds, not the ants.In the end, I dug them out with a knife - it took ages - the ants scarpered. But the rhubarb stuff sounds great for aphids - I dont have a guilty concience when disposing of them. Thanks for you advice about Round Up cos I didn't know it was harmful to humans. I used to use a flea spray on my puddy cats that had organo phosphates in it..then I read what they can do and I don't use the spray anymore, but some other stuff.

Thanks for your thought about our rabbit Amuse..it did survive after treatment, but was never very healthy afterwards. Eventually though, it disappeared from our garden and we suspect it was an urban fox's dinner. We don't seem to have had much joy with rabbits..just have puddy cats now.

[Avalive]

A cool piece