Rats Transfiguring

Oh, that sinking ship!

Surviving cold and stormy seas

Flotsam, clinging on

And one day will hitch

An amazing ride through space

To brave new, desperate worlds 

Just like our forebears

Scrabbling round the feet of giants

Took the human path

So they already

Skipping past the prototype 

Tenaciously begin

The night climb up the ropes

Onto the welcoming ship,

The plenteous hold

144.

Axolotl

A salamander

That never grows up and stays

An aqueous creature 

Lives in deepest caves

Fades to pale transparency

Too perfect to live?

145.

Snow 44.

Fleas

Antifreeze, spring-tails!

Life writ on winter paper

Peppering blind faith

Hopping meteorites

Landed on the pristine snows

Messages from space

Who could imagine

Such harmless innocence

Pure optimism!

146.

Jumping spider - Maevia Inclemens

Tiny predator's

Complex behaviour reveals

Worlds in grains of sand

Thousands of species

Perfecting micro kingdoms

Jostled territories

147.

Vicuna

Up in the high cold

The winds demand perfection

For bare survival

The thinnest of hair

On the delicate body

Traps the frigid air

Smells disappear

On the swept altiplano

Hearing dulls, founders -

Sight remains vital

Sharp, cutting, clears the miles

For camelid speed

Effortless grace

Defies the deadly harshness,

Beauty triumphant

.

148.

Bee Hummingbird (For Esther)

In a minute nest

On a branch of a tall tree

On the Isle of Pines

Lie two tiny eggs:

Inside them babies smaller

Than your fingernails.

They will crack open

Their world, cared for by mother

As superpowers grow:

Magnificent wings

Driven by musculature

That blurs their movement

And can fly backwards,

Hover, thrust their beaks deep, deep

In a thousand flowers,

Drinking the nectar

Through custom hollow tongues  -

Life in the afat lane -

149.

Leopard Seal

Long, thin, fast, lethal

Less blubber, honed for speed

Tearing, rending mouth -

Perfect predator!

Patrols the southern seas

Fate-wielding beauty

150.

Screech Owls

Screech owls rarely screech

Even voicing Halloween 

They live shy, ferocious

Huge eyes drink darkness

Their razor gripping talons  

Slice the lives of prey

A terrible beauty

Their plumage subtly mimics

The woods around them

Quietly disappears

This coat of many colours

Perfect incognito

Fingering the night

Coasting through silence

Harbingers of death

151.

Golden Eagles, Isle of Mull, Scotland

Rising, spiralling

From a tall, untidy nest

Into realms of air

Is there joy there,

The soaring exultation

Beyond necessity?

The flight's a meeting

Of four eyes locked, ferocious

Scanning the state of the world

152.

The White Bulls of Rome

(Roman cattle were mostly red/brown, but a strain of huge white cattle was reserved for important sacrifice)

The haunting white bulls

Thousands of sacrifices

A river of blood

Their mournful lowing

Echoes down the corridors

Of stubborn meaning

Down through the centuries

Stolen from generations

They migrate the sky

153.

Dung Beetles

Strongest of insects!

If we could roll Jupiter

Along dusty paths

We might find the pride

To rival this Sisyphus

Whose endless labours

Recycle the shit

Dropped by us other creatures,

Humbly clean up 

Take thoughtless leavings

Transform them into caches, 

Survival palaces

154.

Bactrian Camel

Great ship of the  steppes!

Whose gait oscillates the sea

Links worlds, continents.

Patient in extremes!

Your slow conquest of distance

Masters time itself

 135. 

Ruby-throated hummingbird

A challenging epic -

Feeding the high metabolism

The struggles, the fights for turf -

Life in the fast lane

The costs of panache,

The brilliant precision,

Stunning survival -

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