1. A manifestation of the Great One, or Master of the Universe;
2. A form of prayer and exaltation to all the wonders around you.
Study of a Venus Flytrap
W.L. Mantis
The monster of the bog, you eat without ceasing,
Either dragging your nutrients out from the soil
Or catching your prey in that pit of despair:
You grow in dull and shadow-covered green,
Hunting your victims in surreptitious silence,
Waiting, waiting, waiting: your patience is eternal,
As if the skies have granted you their endless depths
To pace within, while you await your fish,
You trickster of a fisherman: your very body
Used as your unfailing, scented lure,
Still waiting—how long can a single soul wait
Before it will forever go insane?
You predator, you lurker, sneaking thief
Thief of lives: How dare you smite the earth
With your abundant coils of treachery?
And yet, you stand as blameless: you were alone,
And starving in the barren, fruitless moss,
When you discovered there were buzzing things
Encompassing your ears, these things of beauty:
You could have that music for yourself!
At last, salvation comes to you: poor plant,
No longer satisfied with rain and sun—
Plantkind cannot exist on bread alone!
So you are not at fault for your desires:
What dark creator saw you in His mind—
He is to be attacked for your existence.
He who, omniscient and forever wise,
Would blunder so, as to create from scraps,
A plant that takes advantage of the sun,
That feeds with light the vegetarians,
And also bares its gnashing jaws against
The children of the Bog, the tiny flies:
Sacrificed on your behalf, alone
And left to rot inside your gluttony.
What kind of witchcraft would design such things,
Such penetrations to the world of sense,
Such dark perversions to the world of light?
Sadistic God, who brings such things to being.
And yet, despite your born hostility,
Your tyranny that sprouts up from those roots,
Organic in the willing, passive ground,
You are so brilliant red, a gorgeous shade
So pleasing to the eye, it cannot be
That you were made with death alone in mind:
There must be something more behind these flowers,
That come with every blush of spring, these blooms
The white of freshly fallen snow, like doves
Come sprouting from these stems of bright chartreuse:
Such beauty from such morbid darkness comes,
Like sunlight from an orchestra of storms.
O, Flytrap, strange creation, made of pieces
Left from heaven’s unrecycled paper,
You are what comes out of such a mass,
Which none have understood of late, nor known;
And yet, from these miscellanies of nature
Comes the rhythm, comes the nomenclature
Which sprouts from neither logic nor from sense,
But only from a lack of confidence:
When all is lost, when we begin to fade
Away into our grave, the bed we made
So long ago, that morning when we rose,
Knowing we would go there for repose:
Only when we must, at last, return
We look at all our toils and our concern:
And see, that as we wasted, as the fly,
And dared to lie pathetic, and to cry,
The Flytrap bloomed with spring’s forgiving gaze,
And showered all of nature with its praise.
Under Copyright Law.
Pseudonym: W.L. Mantis (W stands for Wormwood, L stands for Lewis; if you've read The Screwtape Letters, you know what I'm talking about.)
Gender: Female
Political Orientation: Republican (obviously)
Religious Orientations (In no particular order): Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, A tiny bit of Islam (If you've read life of Pi, you've seen something of the kind of person I am).
Hobbies: Reading and Writing, Politics, Religion, Philosophy, Astronomy, Biology, Physics, Psychology, Religion, History, Studying the moral complexities of Slavery, Volunteer Work, Debate, Chess, Music (classical; I love Handel and Mozart, but also a bit of Styx and Simon/Garfunkel), Religion, Technology, Art, Poetry, C.S. Lewis, John Milton, and, last of all, Religion.
Occupation: Student, budding psychotherapist/psychoanalyst
Life's Dreams: Lead a Fulfilling life, Comprehend God, Publish at Least One Book, Take over the world
Foods: Japanese, Italian, Gourmet Vegitarian Dishes (yum!)
Favorite Psychologist: Maslow (www.wikipedia.org, search Maslow)
Favorite Philospher(s): Ghandi and Jesus
Loves: The human race, pasta, religion, bubble wrap
Hates: People who think there is a microscopic gnome inside my ear telling me what do do
Tolerates, but finds hard to love: People who decide spontaneously to put pencils through my hands (yes, this actually has happened to me).
Talks: Too much.