144.
Axolotl
Up in the high cold
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 InclemensTiny predator's
Complex behaviour reveals
Worlds in grains of sand
Thousands of species
Perfecting micro kingdoms
Jostled territories
147.
Vicuna
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 beauty150.
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 pathsWe 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
