The Easter Bunny brought my bibliophiliac 9-year-old great-niece Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Before now I have been the HP Giver, but somehow the Bunny decided it was time for E to move on into the darker realm. By this afternoon she was on page 138. For her, words are like Lay's potato chips: she can't eat just one.
2.
Dragonflies and damselflies don't eat just one either. If it flies, creeps, crawls, or swims, the Odonate will grab it and ingest it faster than you say Ick! Believe me, I know. I have watched them eat on the fly and on the plant, plucking other critters out of the air, masticating, and swallowing them barely before grabbing another. The first time I saw a Blue Corporal eat a damselfly (of uncertain kind), I didn't even understand what I was seeing. I thought the dragonfly was injured because it flew and fought with the damselfly so clumsily. The female Eastern Pondhawk, on the other hand, snagged a slightly smaller Calico Pennant with ease, flew it to a bush, and proceeded to tear into the head with what can only be called relish. Like E, the Pondhawk is voracious.
This afternoon, the library filled with undergraduates expert in sugar consumption. They tore into Edible Books, eating The Three Little Pigs, The Lord of the Fries, The 101 Dalmatians, and How to Tell if Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You with fingers slathered in icing.
From "Eating Poetry" by Mark Strand
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
5.
I revel in words, words, words, and they are good.
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