Careful with that door. Don\u2019t slam \u2013
\nyou might trap a little lurker.<\/p>\n
They slip in quiet, just off the edge
\nof vision, fold their powdery wings<\/p>\n
and wait. Lovers of thresholds.
\nWatching. Wanting to drink<\/p>\n
from the wellspring of your days.
\nTiny universes of emptiness<\/p>\n
baffled by the light. So much pain
\nin the corners of this room.<\/p>\n
Leave a window open. Please.
\nLet them flutter round the lamp.<\/p>\n
Little ghosts, come in. I have left you
\nnectar, honey, milk in china saucers.<\/p>\n
Little ghosts, I want to feed you
\nthough I cannot feed myself.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
We haven\u2019t been alone this summer. You might have thought the ferocious heat that some of us have been hiding from was precision built to force us apart from other bodies, creatures. Not another source of warmth! I am leaving you for now, my cat has said often in the last few months; I do not need you to raise my temperature.<\/p>\n
But of course, this has been a golden age for some insects. As I type, a six-legged creature I can\u2019t identify \u2013 a damselfly maybe \u2013 is hanging out on the window in my study, indecisive in whether it wants to come in properly, land on my keyboard, or disappear back out towards the three red roses in bloom that are somehow clinging on to colour, life.<\/p>\n
In a lot of the days over the last few weeks I have felt that I am in some sort of Mexican standoff with houseflies. Or rather a fly. One, persistent chap, day after day \u2013 or more accurate to say, a new chap, the next day. Have they ever had such a good time, a rambunctious time? The Guardian<\/em> article<\/a> on the \u2018plague\u2019 that many homes have experienced also felt like a bit of a soft rebrand: the Big Fly brand strategy is eyeing up the path Cute Bee has taken, and fancies some of that repositioning action. Not as a nausea-inducing threat, but a soft, natural helpmeet.<\/p>\n Not that Rachael Davey\u2019s \u2018There is so much longing at the edges of this room\u2019 is about flies per se. I suspect another summer I might read it and think it is another insect being hymned here. Lucky them to have such a hymn. To have such couplets of kindness and grace that say: you are no threat, bade ye welcome.<\/p>\n And it is a repositioning, for me at least, a person of the city that is scared by the words \u2018verdant\u2019, \u2018wildlife\u2019 and \u2018lush\u2019, to think that an insect might just want to make friends, \u201cWanting to drink \/ from the wellspring of your days.\u201d Yes, yes we are all connected, but we \u2013 I \u2013 struggle to remember that that applies to much to the ugly species as well as the pretty ones.<\/p>\n There is something here as well that suggests if a relationship between human and insect can be established, the \u2018I\u2019 figure might attain some sense of, if not salvation, maybe an absolution of a sin. I suppose flies being drawn to the dirty is analogous to the \u201cpain \/ in the corners of this room.\u201d Mostly though this poem is a moment of wonder, capturing an everyday moment of wonder that we should take as being special. That we share space and time with anything at all is a miracle.<\/p>\n
\nI might disagree that they are \u201cTiny universes of emptiness\u201d though. Ghosts aren\u2019t empty \u2013 which these flies most likely are of course, if we take the long (and longing) reincarnation view \u2013 they\u2019re restless memories that don\u2019t know how and where to settle. Incomplete pictures, inevitably \u201cbaffled by the light\u201d.<\/p>\n