Releasing Ladybugs (Hippodamia Convergens)

Ron Charach
From:   Past Wildflowers. Quarry Press, 1997

After spending two days in the fridge
in a cheesecloth bag filled with white straw
you would think they would stumble and scurry
to green freedom.
Instead they amble straight-ahead, suspicious
of gifts, like the sprayed leaves I invite them to visit
for a cool drink and an aphid lunch;
they prefer to crawl on the warm hand
already known.
When they do take the plunge
-- in my impatience I flick them from my finger —
they land like adolescents, on their backs
and needing a winged flurry
to right themselves,
and horse sense for the sun, birds and spiders.
Often they miss the point of "natural pest control"
and pick a neighbor's hedge or garden
as a fairer setting for their brownish red enamel
phrasings.

Releasing "l,000 Ladybugs,"
Coccinelles to the French, Ladybirds to the Brits
--no Plathian bees, these VW beetles,
cutest legs in the insect world.
At ground level they move ahead like playfully decorated tanks.
But are they really silent?
Or is it a fault in the hearing-aid
that I can't hear them croon
"A Kiss to Build a Dream On"
as they waddle through
the flowering vibernum?

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Ron Charach's works copyright © to the author.