“This bug seems to be dancing—it kind of pounces on the four legs beneath its abdomen, bouncing and swaying, like it’s hearing a music I’m not yet tuned to. And, trying to tune in, I notice the swell and diminuendo of cicadas nearby, and another cricketish chirping just over in those forsythia. The mantis’s head rotates occasionally, sometimes seeming to follow my movement, its big bulbous eyes and filamentous antennae twisting, its little mouth opening and closing. Turns out this mantis has been my companion for the last twenty minutes, this whole break in my afternoon, edging closer to me, dancing, then scooting closer still. And when I sit back in my chair, the mantis pulls its head over the glass to see me (am I being egocentric?), swaying as it does so. Dancing. A woman in a floral pattern dress just walked by and the mantis turned its head—its heart-shaped head!—in her direction. And now back to looking at me, and slowly scooting down off its perch on the glass by rotating its body and walking down the glass, onto the table, and onto my book—When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams—on the edge of the red table, half a foot from my chair. The creature rears up on its back legs, extending its arms like it’s looking for a hug. Like it wants, maybe, to dance with me. (Aug. 29)”
–Ross Gay, “7. Praying Mantis”, A Book of Delights, p. 21-22
