
I looked at space pictures the other day and saw a picture of a galaxy. I’ve seen similar pictures many times but yesterday I researched the praying mantis for my book and the two images came together.
Part of the magic of writing is when two unalike ‘stuffs’ come together in a new way. This is part of the art in what sometimes seems (in dark moments) nothing more than a formula. But the same can be said for galaxies, right?
Kissing Mantis
The kissing mantis waits in spreading dark
To take my hand and provide wings of a dream
So I might never turn and see in her mark
My darkened shadow self’s fading gleam
And as I sweep the seas in a stellar monsoon
I spy a long–tressed lady in the starry brine
Smooth strokes of light shape a lonely moon
Who casts her child among the stars to pine
And the watery land below us torridly turns,
Waking and dreaming, caught in shadowed force
The veins of a turning galaxy that glisten
And the curved arms of the mantis keep the
course