Tag Archives: insects

Beetrice by Edwina Smith

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Beetrice is all abuzz
A busy buzzing bee
Busy as a bee can be
Her home inside a tree

Shall we look and see
What she really does?
The busy bee she needs to be
Aside from all the buzz

Deep within the hive
She works her busy legs
Taking care of ‘Queenie’
While she lays more eggs

Lots of little larvae
Needing to be fed
Making sure each one has
A share of sweet bee bread

Working waxy wonders
Rooms with walls of six
Holding strong for so long
There’s no need for sticks

A fussy, clever cleaner
She keeps a spotless home
Life’s such a buzz within
Her world of honeycomb

But beware of Beetrice
Best to let her be
Show respect for her place
A home inside that tree

Should it be disturbed
The hive a bee defends
She’s got quite a sting
And so have all her friends

Lots to do in Summer
Young ones can’t get hot
Busy Beetrice fans her wings
Or else they’ll lose the lot

United with her sisters
Workers make a breeze
Cooling down bees to be
Together done with ease

Foraging for nectar
Changing it to honey
On the wing from dawn to dusk
While the days are sunny

Visiting the flowers
Beetrice never stops
She helps feed our nation
By pollinating crops

What a wonderous worker
A busy buzzing bee
Without busy Beetrice
Where would we be?

Could she understand
What bees do for us?
She’s probably too busy now
Too busy for a fuss

Busy buzzing Beetrice
Thank you for the honey
To have on buttered toast
Golden, sweet and runny!

And for tasty fruit
You work away for hours
There’s apples, pears and cherries
From pollinated flowers

We are so grateful
For treats such as these
May there always be
Busy buzzing bees!

Photo from Pexels by Pixabay

Miss Butterfly by Linda Davidson

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Image by Linda Davidson

Cricketing Around by Meryl Brown Tobin

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Did you call me a grasshopper?
No way; I’m a cricket.
I’m one of two hundred eggs
my mum laid in the soil.

Do you reckon I look
like a mini-adult?
Sure I do because I shed my skin
as I grow and get a new one.

Notice I don’t fly much at all?
Why? Because I can’t––
my wings are too small.
See, I jump, jerk my way around.

Notice the tooth-like bits on my wings?
Only males have them. Listen, I can
rub them together. Hear a chirping sound?
It attracts the cricket chicks.

Ever heard me chirping at night?
That’s because I’m a nocturnal guy
and coldblooded so I liven up in the warm.
I’m warm now––hear me chirp.

Look out, here comes a lizard!
Hide me––I don’t want to be its snack.
Or a frog’s, a big spider’s or a tortoise’s.
Me, I love yummy fungi, plants, insects.

See my fancy compound eyes?
They let me look in many directions at once.
Check out my antennae, my feelers––
they pick up movement, help me catch prey.

Japanese and Chinese people reckon
I bring good luck. So make sure you’re nice to me.

Image from Pexels by Johnny Mckane

Abracadabra by Jenny Erlanger

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The tadpole’s now a frog – how strange!
and where’s that duckling gone?
It’s undergone some mystic change
and turned into a swan!
The caterpillar’s been reshaped,
been made a butterfly.
Once, just a bug, it’s now escaped
to navigate the sky.
Spectacular and free to see
in grasslands, trees and ponds
these wondrous acts of wizardry
require no magic wands.

Photo by Pixabay

Spring Is A Thing by Celia Berrell

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Spring is a thing,
a seasonal symphony.
Singing its songs within nature’s fine harmony.

Plants grow new buds, putting leaves on display.
Birds return home from warm winter holidays.
Insects emerge from their dark hibernation.
There’s feeding and breeding and plant propagation!

Plants take their cues
from the air’s warmer ways,
while birds are called home by the length of the days.

Cold snaps confuse some key pollinators.
Should they wake up or remain hibernators?
Come out too early, no food will have grown.
Come out too late and their flowers have gone.

Spring is a thing.
A seasonal symphony.
Dancing with daylight and climate’s warm mystery.

Photo from Pixabay

We Are The Champions by Dannielle Viera

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Some called us lost from Earth’s great zoo
Extinct beyond a doubt
But we are here to claim our prize
As champs of hiding out

Men sought us over Lord Howe Isle
(And brought their rats as well)
So we jumped ship and hid upon
A stack that spikes the swell

Beneath a tea-tree clinging to
The stark Balls Pyramid
We waited to be found by folks
Before we flipped our lid

It took some eighty years before
Two scientists arrived
But even then they couldn’t see
Our black butts had survived

That night we nosed out from our nook
To let them know we’d won
The longest game of hide-and-seek
Insects had ever run

And now we’d like our trophy, please
We phasmids are for real
If you do not acknowledge us
We’ll give you stick – so deal!

Tree House by Jacinta Lou

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Home to birds and bugs.
Wasps, spiders, grubs and tree house.
Empty when wasps feed.

(In response to Prompt #5)

Image credit: Jacinta Lou

Poem of the Day

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Imagining the Life of an Earwig

by Helen Hagemann

 

Leave a door open long enough

and an earwig will enter. The kitchen

is the most popular to travel in.

Among insects a decision is made

(those of different species)

not to touch or pass by in the hallway.

An ant and earwig might come together

and part, safe in the knowledge

that when one leaves another arrives.

It’s the past meeting the future

simultaneously.

Whichever direction an earwig goes,

it will be one fast step

from the swish of a dog’s tail,

or the pounce of a cat’s paw.

Outdoors, earwigs forage in drains, leaf litter.

They love the chemistry of winter air,

the heavy crash of rain, a blue sky when it stops.

Sometimes you find an earwig sleeping between

the sheets of the morning newspaper,

although a quick flap or roll

over discarded scraps

can be fatal.

Poem of the Day

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Crusader Beetle

by Helen Hagemann

 

She is not the Japanese beetle

who devastates rows of basil plants;

 

that brown and black fellow chomping

circles in your garden spaghetti herbs.

 

She is not elongated, black and lemon-tipped

like Soldier beetle who swarms in number

 

spring and summer; gardeners anxious they’re

plaguing Melbourne. Crusader beetle is not

 

bejeweled in topaz, emerald or sapphire

like Jewel beetle. Nor is she the roller

 

of poop like Dung beetle, ready to squeeze

her offspring inside (like famous Alexander

 

Beetle’s matchbox) reducing methane as she

dillies away on a cow pat in less than twenty-four

 

hours. No! Crusader beetle is neither of these,

but a “Joan of Arc” carrying her bannered symbol

 

on a bluish back. A cross in clear salute, as if

she is proud of her history, out there warring

 

against predators, her pink and grey feelers

tapping out miles travelled between home and

 

Acacia bloom, wing-pads blazoned with that

repellent X, proliferating Indonesia, the Indo-

Pacific, or at home, her hind femur and inner
teeth ready to slay Australia’s backyard weeds.

Poem of the Day

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Silverfish

by Helen Hagemann

Not as lucky as a Las Vegas dollar
nor as silver,
but if you look inside panelled rooms
there may be several silverfish
touring endlessly in the house of a miser
or in one of those 19th century cottages
where the rain soaks North Somerset,
bookshelves covered in trench coats.

You know that silverfish chew into glue,
plaster, paint, photos, sugar, coffee,
hair, carpet, clothing, dandruff,
book bindings and paper (and that’s
a lot to get through in a week!)

Imagine one slippery silverfish
in a musty library of a French poet
travelling through paragraphs of Reverdy,
John Donne, Simone De Beauvoir or Sartre,
his hunger moving toward simile and speech,
words curling into little white ropes
and lifting from the page,
one letter at a time.