Despair on a Snowy Morning

[Cita]

It is such a fragile thing.

The butterfly tastes with her feet.

The bat has sex in the fall, but doesn't get pregnant until the spring so her body must have a thin membrane that holds the sperm apart...and warm...and alive...until the time is right.

The sherds of an ancient pot, dug up carefully from dense black soil, crumble in my clumsy hands.

The long-eared bull takes a dive into the canyon below and you say, "Don't look at him, just act like we don't care," and an hour later he stands in the water lot eating hay with his family group, having leapt over the low part of the barbed-wire fence.

It is a miracle that anything is born.

[Bill Floyd]

Not only are we born, we persist and many of us manage to do more than just kill time, too.  Been doing this since the Big went Bang, or God said, "Go," or whatever.  The quote rings true to me.  But there's no ecstasy without the risk of despair.     

[Gita]

I'm siding with Dorothy, here. Scott Lynch is an appendage.

The bull, though, that's the damndest thing. Fell down, rescued himself. It's not only a miracle that anything is born, it's a miracle that so many creatures survive.

Turkey poults in the wild have a two percent chance of making it to their first birthday. Everything that walks, flies or crawls, even fire ants, want to eat them. *sigh*

[Crosby Kenyon]

Overall, though, it's still positive.  Thanks.

[Dude A Bydes]

You know the power of a single word, Cita. The "born" identity of each of these creatures is testimonial to the delicate path all living things take to their temporal existence. Nice thought-provoker. -Dude

[Joey Delgado]

'The butterfly tastes with her feet.' This sentence is my favorite and there is no real reason why. It's just so delicate and sweet. The fact that you called the butterfly a 'her' and not an 'it' is what really got me. 

The whole thing is beautiful and the 'despair' you are talking about is the despair one feels when they realize how fragile life is? But the butterfly sentence is not really describing a vulnerability like the others. It's one of those facts about life, about another living thing, that makes wonder why the hell certain things in life are the way they are. Why does a butterfly taste with her feet?

I love this six. 

[Dorothy Pendleton]

These beautiful six sentences make Scott Lynch's assessment so beside the point.

[Crista Ramone]

God, I love that quote. Great six!

[Angela]

When I saw the word "despair" in your title, I was stunned and almost didn't open your post.  Your voice is usually one of wonder and reverence, I didn't want to face something different - but I don't sense despair in this, just an acute awareness of fragility.  Relieved.