Fauna in the Flora. . . in Time’s Telescope . . .

A bronze grasshopper leaps through my peripheral vision. Instantly, I see its green ancestor, through a gap between small fingers, a peephole into the rosy darkness of a cupped young hand — one of my children’s, years ago. . .  An almost-simultaneous screen switch to another sense, touch, the thrilling tickle of grasshopper feet on my palm, the tiny, determined energies of its thwarted escape jumps. Memory written in my skincells. Time’s telescope. Me, now; Them, then; Me, long ago. . .