August

August
and I leave my garden to the bugs.

The mosquitoes drove me away, they
and my back being out.

They probably miss me.
They're quick enough to mob me
when I dash through their domain.
They follow me indoors.

But the spiders no doubt are happier
when I don't crash through the webs
so carefully strung across the walkway —
my walkway, and theirs.

Now that I'm not lifting rocks,
the ants are no longer scrambling
out of my way,
frantically moving larvae from where
they so precipitously (and unadvisedly,
in my opinion,) stored them.

Butterflies, moths, pill bugs, centipedes,
cicadas, gnats, crickets, flies,
free from the natural disaster that is me.

All undisturbed,
among so many insect species,
genera, families, orders, classes
industriously preparing for
some imagined day when
we humans leave this Eden
to them permanently.