Ladybug

The design is Art Deco meets mid-century sci-fi:

a seemingly seamless blood-orange red, 

hard enamel dome (with 5 black spots)--

which can break in half to let wings open.

A tiny black and crafty head--with

the machinery to bite aphids and humans. 

Six of the smallest black legs

in insect show business. Two antennae. 

Coccinellididid is the Latin name--

which in my head I hear sung with a Latin

beat (try it). In California, ladybugs

migrate from the Big Valley to the Sierra

for summer. I'm told as many as thirty

million can swarm in a quarter acre--

and not behave like locusts or other

pests (humans, for example).

Intelligent Design? Tempting, but no:

an example of what Evolution does because

it has all the time in the universe plus

no deadlines. Ladybugs make me smile

thinly (hello again). Unless they bite, at

which point I cast them off in a huff.

hans ostrom 2025