The Fly
trying yet again
A hot, humid morning. Tired of airborne exertions, a fly drops down onto my iPad and begins walking slowly back and forth across the screen. Like a landowner inspecting his estate, he strolls slowly from one side to the other, then turns and ambles back along a different path. Sometimes he pauses for long moments at one verge or another, enjoying without covetousness the beauty of neighbouring lands. Imperturbable, he doesn’t startle or change his pace when I tilt the device or bring it closer to inspect him. I imagine his deep pleasure at the warm vibrations of this dawn, basking in the shifting glow of puzzles and news, his ears gratified by the ticks of buried percussionists. He might be ill. Too spent for anything but this languid perambulation of an alien glass. Then again, his quest could be a selfless one. Trying yet again, after generations of dogged attempts, buzzings and skin ticklings and suicide splats, to find the means to make contact and transmit through agile feet what he knows: the glory of the maggot and the compound eye, the wisdom of upsidedownness that makes of ceilings, floors. Soon he will solve the small riddle of these circuits. His is the voice I am waiting for.
"the glory of the maggot and the compound eye": what a gorgeous line, and sentiment. It recalled a favourite poem by Yusef Komunyakaa: https://poems.com/poem/ode-to-the-maggot/