I woke this morning thinking of tiger beetles. Specifically, their larvae, and the time I spent this fall tending to things as yet unseen. My heart is full, like a mother's, as I try to imagine their tiny frames tucked tight in test tubes kept chilly at the local zoo.I miss that weekly routine carried out with my friend Mark, one of us tapping wingless fruit flies into plastic cups while the other utters a silent prayer that the ancient laptop has kept safe the digital diary of our tiny friends' lives. Yes, I do believe they became our friends, over time, even though most of our work was done in blind belief that something living was indeed buried deep inside those dirt-filled cylinders.
Against the dark backdrop of a winter's early morning, I close my eyes, willing myself to see tiny lives transformed, larvae pushing out tiny legs, the mote of a heart beating slowly, steadily. A species on the verge of rebirth. And I hope against hope that Jessie the Zookeeper remembers her promise and, come some warm day not too far in the future, Mark and I will be asked to join the scientists as they release these tiny beetles into the saline landscape of their new lives.
As I sit, warm, in my bed, I imagine this room as a cave, and me, its hibernating inhabitant, and I wonder what it is I will become when the spring thaws return to this land.
No comments:
Post a Comment