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
