I'd love to hover too, in tall canyons of sunlight
Like this black and gold dream, caught motionless against
A swaying wilderness of lime trees and towering shadows,
Not frozen, as a snapshot in time, but poised sentiently . . .
Snappy mover, jumpjet of the insects, the fly takes me
For a predator – or some bird stirred among the leaves
High above – and jumps. It reappears four feet
And countless microseconds ahead of my imagined attack.
An unknown art has made this spirit seem machine,
The long fuselage wasp-blazoned to proclaim itself deadly
As a gunship. Yet this fly is no swaggering killer,
Slays no meat, but sips at the begging bowls of flowers,
Attracts attention purely to deflect it, rides
With attentive skill the still centre of unceasing
Movement. The hoverfly hovers just beyond our grasp—
Beyond, too, the grasp and snap of hard beak and bone.
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