Growing a garden which you hope will enrich and support wildlife, as well as provinding beauty for your own eye, is always full of suprises. This is no formal experiment, where we surveyed the insect and bird populations before we began to do things differently – in no small part because the process is changing and evolving and not based on a single decision point.

Last time I shared a poem with you, I hinted at the mysteries of not knowing. There are so many creatures I have no name for, yet, and I’m content to find out slowly. You can read that last poem, about the twilight creatures, here.
This new piece carries a description of an unknown insect. I’m afraid I didn’t have my camera with me, and still don’t know what it was. Maybe one day I’ll find out! (Edit 22/7/23 see end of post)

This second “Unknown” poem also holds within it a reflection on seeds, and our tendency to see things as small acts.

Unknown – Oxeye daisy

This morning, the oxeye daisy cradled
an insect I had never seen before.
Unknown, unimagined,
strange and handsome.

Long, black, elegant, with an
abdomen scriven in yellow runes.
It stroked its long, curled antennae tenderly,
as if they were locks of hair. 
Not knowing me, it knew no fear.
It did not fly as I gazed.

That small pinch of seed from last year –
tiny, dry as sand – each day brings a
new and wondrous fruitfulness,
an unanticipated beauty,
a new joy, a new abundance.
The scattering of it was
no small act, it seems.
And I am coming to think that
there are no small acts, after all.

For those of you who are interested in the readings followed by many churches, now is a time when the parable of the Sower is often called to mind – along with other seed related parables. This reflection on the scattering of seed, and the fruits that follow, draws on the insights of those stories. You could begin to explore those insights here, and here

Edit 22/7/23: In the comments below Caroline suggests it was a longhorn beetle. Here’s a picture from the Natural History Museum – a spotted longhorn beetle. It’s the one I saw! Welcome to the garden, little friend.