The storm-seers failed to tell us
to await the malachite beetles.
We must thank them for this failure.
If we had foreseen the storm, we
would have been alone, at home,
wrapped safe as a spider wraps
its prey. We would have been separate.

And so, we did not see the storm, we
were shopping, borrowing books,
mailing letters, living public lives.

Now it has come, and we—
in truth we are no people, we
are stones under the moss
of the viridescent storm.

When the air hums green, we
lose the things that keep us
lonely, keep us separate. We
are together in strange places,
avalanched into libraries,
post offices, neighbors’ homes.

The storm of the malachite beetles
is unification. Each insect like
each other, each human equally
stone, equally speaking to drown out
the hum of beetle wings.

We are safe inside our carapaces, we
are safe in company with strangers.
The storm is care and crisis both,
verdant, teeming, bringing life
on sharp-edged, malachite wings.