Appetites

1.
I returned to the small pond today, hoping to see the Unicorn Clubtail. I did, but it dodged me and my camera. I am ravenous for new odonates.

2.
One new sight I wish I hadn't seen was an emergent Comet Darner, whose abdomen never fully emerged from the exuvia. All of the mature color had already set it, indicating the darner had been there some time. I wonder if I will see it again tomorrow, or if, by then, someone will have eaten it.

3.
This Amber-winged Spreadwing snagged breakfast and ate it quickly as I filmed it. All gone within just a couple of minutes. He looks small and thin, but the fuel he requires for the hard work of flying and mating is large, as his appetite.

Aggressive Appetites

I
I am so glad the Internet didn't exist when I was a child, as I have a voracious appetite for random facts. I read and re-read the encyclopedia, studied the dictionary page by page, looked closely and often at National Geographic, and wore out the atlas as a child.

I would be hopeless today.

I am hopeless today.

I often forget what I log in to look for because I find one thing, and then another, and then another.

II
Some folks hunger for fame or money or advancement in a job.

One of my problems is that I have never had ambition. To do anything or be anything.

But there are things I cannot resist -- popcorn and chocolate, among them.

III
Dragonflies and damselflies are ravenous. 

Throughout their life cycles, they eat and eat and eat, to move through developmental stages or instars. When they emerge from the water, they eat to achieve sexual maturity, to reproduce, to extend their species. And I mean they eat and eat and eat everything they can snag. (They are flesh-eaters.)

This female Fragile Forktail snatched a large winged something and found a solid perch to consume it. While I was watching and snapping a male flew straight at her head and tried to steal her prey, but to no effect. 

(The WWE is a kindergarten tantrum compared to the aggressive display of Odonates at a pond.)

IV
Appetite can become gluttony in humans, and gluttony may be physical or spiritual. "Supersize" doesn't just refer to a fast-food order. The news reports on dishonest investors and corporate executives padding their pockets, disparity of wealth in this country, competition among stars and athletes for face-time all point to aggressive appetites.

V
Some of us need to go on diets.

But not my Odonates.

Appetite

I
I met some chickens yesterday, beautiful, ornamental, fantastical chickens. Even their eggs made Faberge confections look cheap. Just look at their natural Easter-time beauty.

Those chickens happily ate some worms, offered by my friend and their human keeper. I kept thinking of the chickens I eat, in those cramped cages in hot chicken houses, their bodies unnaturally plumped for our super-sized appetites.

A chicken is not just a chicken.

II
Everybody eats. Take damselflies, for example. They and dragonflies are masterful predators. As naiads living in the water, they'll eat anything they can: small fish, big fish, each other. In their final stage as emerged fliers, they eat any insect that can catch, including each other.

I have watched them do this, and I have been fascinated.

III
Of late, I have been possessed of an appetite for British mystery series -- Vera, Luther, Above Suspicion, Single-Handed. I can't get enough.

I can't enough of good-tasting things, too, especially sweets. Twenty-four macarons lasted less than a week. I consoled myself with the shipper's warning that they would be fresh for five days.

IV
Appetite
by Paulann Petersen

Pale gold and crumbling with crust

mottled dark, almost bronze,

pieces of honeycomb lie on a plate.

Flecked with the pale paper

of hive, their hexagonal cells

leak into the deepening pool

of amber. On your lips,

against palate, tooth and tongue,

the viscous sugar squeezes

from its chambers, sears sweetness

into your throat until you chew

pulp and wax from a blue city

of bees. Between your teeth

is the blown flower and the flower's

seed. Passport pages stamped

and turning. Death's officious hum.

Both the candle and its anther

of flame. Your own yellow hunger.

Never say you can't take

this world into your mouth.