WHEREAS THE VIRTUE OF THE MANTIS

From a distance a crumpled cellophane or an ashen leaf-remnant prone on the cold morning stone. Closer up the prostrate shell of a mantis time exed out. Silent as prayer, blind with purpose, battalions of tiny red ants file to and from the body, clamor to dissect the carcass, carry off bits of exoskeleton, bent-wire appendages, mandibles, tinny antennae, ravage this ruined piece of survival’s machinery cog that will not be in a world of insatiable hunger missed the universe wastes not wants not. I do not think there is a soul, I think, looking down at the dregs of this hollow creature-shell (though, being honest, I think it more likely for the mantis than me) no hovering spirit relieved of its tether to take its last look, only this frail and failing fragment, body prone, forelegs bent in genuflection everything we call the world

K N Howard