BUG WEEK: In Which I Share A (Sort Of) Secret

When I was young, e'en to my eighteenth year

I had a weakness easy to play on:

For nothing in the world gave me such fear

As insects, in the house, out on the lawn,

Once memorably in a campground sink -

Saturniid, there, I picture in my head.

The merest sight would make me scream. You'd think

Me stabbed. Now, "phobia" was never said

Though surely it was thought, as I could stand

A dragon- or a butterfly all right.

By college time it was, though, out of hand

And Bard is a most buggy place at night.

My cure? I took a course and learned each part

An insect has, and thereby lost my heart.

BUG WEEK: In Which We Prepare To Copy An Orchid's Strategy

A Vespa's more than just a motorbike --

It's also, first, a hornet who'll attack

'Most anything it nears that smells just like

A honeybee in fear, it's fav'rite snack.

There is an orchid, a Dendrobium

Which uses just these triggers for its own

Devices: pollenation. They succumb,

These hornets do, to a faked pheromone

The orchids make, that honeybees employ

To warn of danger lurking, and they dive

In search of food - but there's none to enjoy.

This knowledge soon may benefit each hive

Of honeybees that humans keep. We'll make

A trap that preys on this Vespa mistake!

BONUS SONNET: BUG WEEK: In Which I Dwell Upon Japan's Bug Buddha

I am no Buddhist but I know a bit,

That loss of self is something to be sought,

That meditation is one way to it,

And that such things cannot be sold or bought.

Consider then the man who made this shrine:

Inamura Yoneiji, just for love

Collected o'er six years for his design

All manner of insects, all kinds thereof

(But mostly beetles, like in Haldane's quote).

Collecting does mean killing, as he knows,

But hopes to bring them peace as they promote

Deep thoughts on life and time, death and repose.

Their beauty in themselves, there for us, too:

Admire their intricacy, shape and hue.

For Bug Week: A Hymn To Be'gotcidi

Son of the Sun and trickster of our souls,

Be'gotcidi is Lord of the Insects,

A dirty god, as James Hillman extols

When he talks "Going Bugs" and the effects

These creatures have, in life and in our dreams.

Like these, his creatures, Be'gotcidi lands

Where'er he will, just to elicit screams --

Through us is how he souts -- as with his hands

He grabs at us to make us sing. Valery

In L'abeille knows this too, as he

Finds in a deadly, delicate small sting

Administered in warning by a bee

A "gold alarm" that is a wake-up call

To pay attention to the great and small.

In Which We Discover What Mosquitos And A Refreshing Cocktail Now Have In Common

Anopheles is quite a pretty word
Until one looks it up and quickly learns
Of how her bites and habits long have spurred
The spread of a disease that in its turns
Kills millions of us ev'ry year. For most
Of history, at least that while we've known
Malaria is spread by this one host,
We've tried to kill mosquitos ere they've flown
To share their protozoans - though sometimes
Quinine's been pressed into this ageless fight
(Best served with gin, in tonic with some limes).
But now a newer method's come to light:
Transgenic work on skeeters makes them less
Hospitable to malarial pests!