Skip to main content

Glow-worms: as soon as you think you’ve seen them, they blink off | Helen Sullivan

As soon as you’re sure you imagined them, on they go again

“Thou aeronautical boll weevil / Illuminate yon woods primeval,” the Mills Brothers sang in 1952, imploring glow-worms to “Light the path below, above / And lead us on to love”. John Keats, comparing the fairness of goddess Psyche with the bright white moon and the evening star (spoiler: she is fairer than both), refers to the star as an “amorous glow-worm of the sky”. Seamus Heaney poked a glow-worm with a blunt stick and “a tiny brightening den lit the eye” – turning the stick into a wand.

Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. I’m in Mozambique, it is dark, and there is a wedding tomorrow. I have just had my first – and I don’t know it yet, but only – drink in a coconut. I chose Fanta Grape. Outside at the restaurant, I see my first glow-worms. It is possible that they are fireflies, but they’re still: on the branches of what I hope are hibiscus trees, but then again, I would happily plant a hibiscus in every memory I have.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/31pytyf
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Rico Lewis helped harden up Manchester City’s treble challenge | Jamie Jackson

Guardiola believes advent of the teenage talent sowed seeds of change that turned his side into champions again Mid-January, the Etihad Campus. Before Tottenham’s visit a discontented Pep Guardiola is addressing a Manchester City team meeting that includes Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, John Stones and Ederson. The champions are in second place, eight points behind Arsenal, each having played 18 games. Performances have dipped and so has the attitude of his players. The final match before the World Cup was a 2-1 home defeat by Brentford . Since the tournament, City have beaten Leeds and Chelsea, drawn with Everton and lost their previous outing , 2-1 at Manchester United. Seven points from 15 is not championship-defending form and, when being knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Southampton is factored in, Guardiola can see City’s campaign derailing. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/h8WjbMX
Post a Comment
Read more

Wandsworth escape accused says it was ‘foolish’ to jail him with his ‘skill set’

Daniel Khalife, 23, says he absconded because he was ‘terrified’ of being locked up with dangerous offenders A former British soldier has told a jury he did not hand himself in after he escaped from prison because he was “finally demonstrating what a foolish idea it was” to imprison someone with his “skill set”. Daniel Khalife, 23, told the court he absconded from Wandsworth prison while on remand because he was “terrified” of being locked up with “serious sex offenders” and “terrorists” who wanted to kill him, and that he did not think his imprisonment would be in the public interest. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/vRZHkaw
Post a Comment
Read more

The Green Planet review – David Attenborough’s gobsmacking, awe-inspiring return

From glowing bioluminescent fungus to 7,000 different camera set-ups for ants, the veteran broadcaster’s miraculous profile of plant life will have you gasping in astonishment so often you’ll be breathless One of the televisual joys I most remember from childhood was when a programme – often a nature documentary, but sometimes a few seconds on Sesame Street or a Tomorrow’s World demonstration of new technology – would show a flower unfolding with time-lapse photography. It was always sudden, always fleeting, and of course there weren’t even any recording buttons – let alone live pausing and rewinding facilities – that you could quickly press in order to capture and relive the delight. It was ever ephemeral, and I could never get enough. Until now, with the latest gift from David Attenborough and his endlessly patient and dedicated team of camera operators (to whom a now traditional 10-minute coda is again devoted), The Green Planet (BBC One). The new five-part series presented by the...
Post a Comment
Read more