October 2024 - Issue No. 16
A Matter of Balance
by
Brigitte Whiting
“Don’t crowd me,” a milkweed tussock-moth caterpillar says.
"Why did we have to hatch together?”
“Just move out of my way.”
“I can’t. Others in my way.”
I've headed out with a bucket of water and a brush to clean the birdbaths. A smaller milkweed near one bath has a black tip and I look closer. Small black milkweed tussock-moth caterpillars crowded together, each about half an inch long and skinny, a light orange strip down their backs. Their parents must be the pale gray moths that have been flying around. And all their offspring have hatched and banded together to eat. Already they’ve munched whole leaves. Two cling to each side of a stem. Some are topside on the leaves, others on the underside. They’re all so close together, I can’t count them.
They’re scary-looking creatures when they’re larger, each upwards of two inches long, black bristles all along their backs, the dash of orange like a warning which it is for birds that they’ll taste nasty. I've never seen them this small before. I already know they’re ravenous eaters of leaves and stalks of milkweeds which is their sole food.
The monarch butterflies, another insect whose offspring, caterpillars, depend on milkweeds, won’t arrive until the end of July on the last leg of a three-generation flight from Mexico. My patch of common milkweeds has bloomed their sprays of purply pink flowers, their fragrance as lovely as lilacs or honeysuckles, and now the plants are growing their...
Read more: A Matter of Balance
Delivery Service
by
E Lysette Gerald-Yamasaki
“Hey! Lady! You forgot your dog!”
I looked over my shoulder. There was such a wealth of “you ditz”—or something worse— in those few words, not to mention a New York gruffness out of place at Peet’s in Aptos, California. Then I realized he was talking to me. I don’t own a dog. I turned and walked slowly back to the table I’d just been at, staring at the cute Benji-looking mutt sitting alertly next to my chair, with a leash dangling from his mouth.
***
“This isn’t my dog,” I said, but the New Yorker had turned back to his table of friends, as if I didn’t exist.
“Don’t worry, it’s just for a little while.”
“What?” I turned full circle. There was no one around except the table with the New Yorker. I looked at the dog, intending to complain, even though I knew he wouldn’t understand, like when I talk to my computer. He was standing now, slowly wagging his tail and looking at me with a gentle smile, as if waiting for me to catch on.
***
I did everything I could to find the dog’s owner. Mutt. He told me at one point his name was Mutt. Who the heck names their dog Mutt?! Anyway, I still had Mutt a few days later when I was grabbing my keys to visit a friend in a retirement home. I considered.
“Do you want to stay here, or come with me to visit Sheila?” Even as...
Honeybee
by
Miriam Manglani
You set a marvelous example.
Working your tiny stinger off
in your short five-week lifespan.
Smearing the sun’s gold
on the walls of your safe of wax.
Sweetening our lives by the jar.
Pollinating flowers and plants,
our lives with fruits and vegetables,
getting a buzz from drinking nectar.
We should bow down to your
muted black and yellow coat.
Your extra eyes for navigating life.
Your large translucent wings
dancing in the sun.
Yet, we run away screaming
when you buzz close by.
Danger often lurks
in what is most precious.
BIO: Miriam Manglani lives in Cambridge Massachusetts with her husband and three children. She has a degree in English from Brandeis University. Her poems have been published in Sparks of Calliope, Red Eft Review, One Art, Glacial Hills Review, and Paterson Literary Review. “They’ve Come” was a finalist for the Beals Prize for Poetry. Her poetry chapbook, Ordinary Wonders, is published by Prolific Press.
** The watercolor is by Florence Manglani, a self-taught multi-media artist. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. After years of concentrating on motherhood and a career as a bilingual School Psychologist, she has returned to painting. She works with watercolors, pastels, oils, and acrylics, focusing on botanicals and landscapes.
https://www.florencemanglani.com/
