Poems after reading Insect Natural History by
A D Imms
On
a suitable day, most often in July or August, the male and female Ants leave
the nest on their nuptial flight.
- from
Insect Natural History, by A D Imms
Carrying shopping, carrying
the sun on my head
Like
a burning anvil,
My
eyes are blinded with gauze.
The
distance is choked with chiffon.
Here
is the street of weddings.
Wedding
dancers brush against me,
Draw
me in, catch at my hair and clothes,
Sail
on my breath towards my mouth.
Black
bullets from Cupid’s Kalishnikov
Winged
with moonlight –
Can
concrete pavements engender such swarms?
Yes, today. For
Aphrodite rises, drenched with pheromones,
To
caress tender organs, tease yearning senses;
To
bring together in embrace the founders of new cities.
Here
are her true devotees. They scorn the earth.
They
follow hormone pathways, pirouetting on molecules
Through
the invisible afternoon.
Empty
underground lies the former capital,
Its
apartments deserted, its streets silent.
Sterility
the burglar will find nothing.
But
today, I do his work. I am the thief of love.
Future
generations are sacrificed
Against
the folds of my skirts.
I sit out, late,
One sky of deep
crystal,
Blue as a swordfish.
Arcturus, moving down into the west,
Holding a fiery
ruby.
Vega, climbing to
the zenith,
Wearing a necklace
of ice and sapphire.
Painted by a tower
block in the style of Kandinski
And one bright
sunflower square
Painted by my back
neighbour but two
And my mobile phone
neighbour
Mewing in his eyrie.
The conversations of a hundred thousand strangers
Buzzing from the
abdomens of red and green insect planes.
One tiny white spot, moving steadily and quietly.
A meteor? The space
shuttle? The ant queen,
Seeking Hymen among
the stars of Hercules?
III.
On Insect Natural History by A D
Imms
Behold the naturalist A D Imms, third edition,
Bringing together
within convenient compass
A large amount of
scientific knowledge.
Between cream
hardboard covers under an illustrative dust jacket
He describes many of
the remarkable features
Associated with the
lives of insects.
Beam down benignly,
you sun
Upon the naturalist
A D Imms
As
he identifies Asilus crabroniformis,
As he bows in reverence upon the rising of the ant queen,
As
he reminds us of the lines by John Keats,
As
he defends Volucella pellucens from my clumsy hand,
As
he dances over the hills brandishing his attribute
The
butterfly net.
Gauzy
as the wedding garment of the ant queen
Floats
the ghost of the naturalist A D Imms,
Chanting
the Latin names of the order Coleoptera.
Smile
cautiously, you young students of Entomology,
And
look you, mock him not.
Wrap
him softly, you earth.
Royal
favours attend him. Queens have given him
The
freedom of their cities; secrets are hid from him no longer.
By
the teeming millions is he made welcome.
All
poems ã
Kate Down – August, 2002.