There comes a point, toward the bottom of the second pint of beer, when every passing thought sounds like a line from a poem — something about the evening light, perhaps, or my falling intonation as I address my pronouncements to the praying mantis beside me, who turns her head to follow the glass as I raise & lower it, & when I set it down empty beside her, rocks slowly from side to side on her four hind legs. Her people are more recent immigrants than mine. She hasn’t yet learned all the rules about when to open the green umbrella on her back. It’s a good thing I’m not drinking cocktails, I tell her. Her fighter’s form is impeccable as she retreats to the underside of the table, though she does tremble a bit. The decor here is a little rustic, but I think she’s thinking this would be a good place to die.
I live in an Appalachian hollow in the Juniata watershed of central Pennsylvania, and spend a great deal of time walking in the woods. Here’s a bio. All of my writing here is available for reuse and creative remix under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For attribution in printed material, my name (Dave Bonta) will suffice, but for web use, please link back to the original. Contact me for permission to waive the “share alike” provision (e.g. for use in a conventionally copyrighted work).
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Oh, I like this very much.
Thanks, I’m glad.
Love “the green umbrella on her back,” especially in connection with the drink you’re having. I once had a dream where someone served a silver platter of something, and whipped the cover off with a flourish. Beneath the cover, a hundred peepers, in full cry, sat, speared by cocktail toothpicks.
Oy. How grim! But worthy of a surrealist poem, I suppose…