“Registering their flora,/their fauna”

     (from Elizabeth Bishop, Crusoe in England)
 
The fog-harvesting beetle has smooth, peaked surfaces
     with troughs of water-repelling wax –
it tilts its back and water-droplets roll into its mouth;
 
the larvae of the stag beetle live inside dead oak for five years;
     in the iridescent blue beetle the scales are stacked,
layer upon layer, light accumulating;
 
only in polarised moonlight can the dung beetle
     roll its ball in a straight line;
and the water-beetle carries fish eggs on its fins:
 
and so she makes you wait,
     her colours placed, geometry in the fold-up
chairs in lantern light – two different lanterns, the lights
 
swinging, and there – the rose red rock roses;
     listening, and waiting, not even waiting – until all
the winged Madeira beetles have been blown out to sea.

Kay Syrad

First published in Poetry Review, Vol. 99:2 Summer 2009,
ISBN 9781900771610;
Won prize in the Second Light Competition 2009 and published in
ARTEMISpoetry, Issue 4, May 2010, ISBN 9780954693473