tiny green grasshopper

tiny green grasshopper,

your lush lemon daylily,

gone tomorrow

When I stoop to smell the sweet fragrance of a lemon daylily, I spot the tiniest grasshopper I've ever seen, perched on one of the upward curving stamens. It poses like a model as I take its photograph, only moving its antennas, which are twice as long as its bright green body.
          On the same stalk as the fully open blossom are the remains of yesterday's bloom and the swelling buds, each one bigger than the one below it. By tomorrow morning, today's lush lily will look like its shriveled companion, as each flower has but one day to fulfill its mission in life. 
          And the little grasshopper? Does it intend to eat the blossom before it wilts? They are certainly tasty, as the ancient Chinese discovered.
          Even the dried blossoms are beautiful, twisting in orange folds and crenelations like creative origami.

grasshopper clinging

grasshopper clinging

to the green wall of a shop --

no blade of grass in sight

I have a particularly keen eye for small anomalies, like four-leaf clovers and typos in sentences, so I immediately notice a grasshopper clinging to the green paint near the foot of the wall at the entrance to Natural Selections. Seems an appropriate place to hang out if you've hopped into town. Grasshoppers prefer grass, leaves and crops such as corn and soybeans, but maybe this grasshopper would be willing to try some of the natural fiber clothes in the shop, such as cotton, hemp or bamboo. In Aesop's famous fable, the grasshopper plays all summer while the ant works hard to build a shelter and store food for the winter, so the grasshopper ends up starving to death. Of course, the female has already laid eggs in the soil, which will lie dormant until the following summer, so the death of the adult grasshopper is not the end of the story. But the fable has given rise to a number of associations besides improvidence, including unfaithfulness (hopping from one partner to another), being scatterbrained (hopping quickly from one subject to another), or naivete (having a lot to learn). Among certain yogis who practice yogic flying, hopping is the beginning stage, followed by hovering and then flying in space. Now that's a blade of grass to chew on!