Write a short piece, poem or story, in which you relate on a physical, psychological or spiritual level to another being (insect, flora or fauna). I've pasted an example below by Galway Kinnell. I will post mine soon:
The Fly
by Galway Kinnell
The fly
I've just brushed
off my face keeps buzzing
about me, flesh-
eater
starved for the soul.
One day I may learn to suffer
his mizzling, sporadic stroll over eyelid or cheek,
even hear my own singing
in his burnt song.
The bee is the fleur-de-lys in the flesh.
She has a tuft of the sun on her back.
She brings sexual love to the narcissus flower.
She sings of fulfillment only
and stings and dies, and
everything she ever touches
is opening, opening.
And yet we say our last goodbye
to the fly last,
the flesh-fly last,
the absolute last,
the naked dirty reality of him last.
"The Fly" by Galway Kinnell, from Three Books. © Houghton Mifflin Co., 2002. Reprinted with permission.
ANother example: Las moscas de Antonio Machado (1907)
Vosotras, las familiares,
inevitables golosas,
vosotras, moscas vulgares,
me evocáis todas las cosas.
¡Oh viejas moscas voraces
como abejas en abril,
viejas moscas pertinaces
sobre mi calva infantil!
¡Moscas del primer hastío
en el salón familiar,
las claras tardes de estío
en que yo empecé a soñar!
Y en la aborrecida escuela,
raudas moscas divertidas,
perseguidas
por amor de lo que vuela,
—que todo es volar—, sonoras
rebotando en los cristales
en los días otoñales...
Moscas de todas las horas,
de infancia y adolescencia,
de mi juventud dorada;
de esta segunda inocencia,
que da en no creer en nada,
de siempre... Moscas vulgares,
que de puro familiares
no tendréis digno cantor:
yo sé que os habéis posado
sobre el juguete encantado,
sobre el librote cerrado,
sobre la carta de amor,
sobre los párpados yertos
de los muertos.
Inevitables golosas,
que ni labráis como abejas,
ni brilláis cual mariposas;
pequeñitas, revoltosas,
vosotras, amigas viejas,
me evocáis todas las cosas.
Youtube video of Serrat singing Las Moscas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgkiukx0VDM&feature=related
First entry for edg
Cántico a un machambo incordio
Machambo, chango
Carbón cagón
que canta como cacharro que cae sobre el macadán
¡Quita, quita!
No picotees las carambolas que están verdes.
No mordisquees las guayabas que aún no crecen y
carecen de cáscaras que puedan cocerse en almíbar
para comerse como cascos rosados con queso blanco.
¡Quita, quita!
No chorrees tu caca en las camisas que cuelgan del cordel.
¡Quita, quita!
¡Calla, calla!
Quédate en una esquina matracando tu cantaleta discordante.
Escóndete como las cucarachas y coge camino hacia el carajo.
No me compelas a componer coplas cacofónicas.
epm***********
Not as accomplished as the poet EPM but I hope you enjoy.
Complaint to the Gorgojo
Dear Sr. Gorgojo,
I hope this finds you well. It is unfortunate that we should find this space to meet but I need to ask you to please stay out of my oatmeal, my necessary rice, the package of maizena that sits at the front of the cupboard waiting. Do you not see
how you erode my work? You, who have painfully crawled out of a chrysalis, must understand that it is not easy being boricua. And yet you dismantle my small house
with your effortless burrowing. Do you not see how you spit at all my abuelita taught me?
You must have your own politics, Sr. Gorgojo, the own party line you meander, half-drunk, dizzy with the knowledge that I will find the graffiti your tongue leaves on my fideos.
There are others you know, who have abandoned snow, interstate highways and 7-Elevens for this shore. But they are still tourists. Talk to them; they know nothing of a heart that works so much to be. Move on to those new imports, their American-ness neon bright and pulsing with a need for cheese slices and mayonnaise. I'll have you know I love bacalaitos in a bag. I love my tattered Spanish in my mouth when I say avena. I love my foothill heart when I buy criollo rice. I promise you, Sr. Gorgojo, that I am not temporary. You will never scare scare me away, back to the places bereft of lizard tails, amapola wings, and you.
Cordially yours,
Jane
Here's an example by Billy Collins:
Dharma
by Billy Collins
The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her dog house
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.
Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Ghandi with his staff and his holy diapers?
Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.
If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment she would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.
If only she were not so eager
for a rub behind the ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god.
"Dharma" by Billy Collins, from Sailing Alone Around the Room. © Random House, 2002.
