Sweet sticky substances, like honey and jam , and that scoop of ice cream falling off your cone and melting in the hot sun…these things attract flies. They gather for a taste of the goodness offered by sugar. The old saying “ you can catch more flies with honey…..” supports this ….. living things require sweetness, and humans are not alone in craving all the sugar they can consume. Flies love honey, despite the fact that it may capture their tiny legs and doom them to a death in situ, legs trapped, they nonetheless die happy, with honey on its wee proboscis!
However, speaking of death…..because finally we must always speak of that final reckoning, right? It all boils down to death…..ANYWAY….decaying bodies , dying bodies attract swarms of flies too….a decaying body does have a certain sweet smell… but it is the rot and decay of a dead thing! Not the ecstatic stink of promising joy that sugar and sweet spices exude.
Point is: flies swarm in both expected and unanticipated places, and the same must be said for the literal expression of ideas that take form in our most prominent proof of existence: words! Words in the mind, stream after gushing torrent of them, or the black fly-like specks of words on a page, written as fast as our minds can produce them.
I live for my swarm of words, or more to the point, I exist for the sheer miracle that I have been gifted with the ability to make those swarms happen. I love words…..my words, others’ words, all words, no matter the form they take, written, spoken, sung…..shouted, whispered , mouthed, typed, scrawled, etched, even unspoken ones. I love language. Even the word “swarm” banishes the loneliness of a life without words…. A swarm warms!
Speaks of family, closeness, large generosity of living things…a swarm….it has the word “arm” in it and arms are what hugs are made of….hugs are always welcome, swarms of them.
The most wonderful thing about words? Like flies, like pesky locusts, they speak of appetite, of passionate devouring, of life, good, bad, but never indifferent.
I can’t help myself….my words swarm and , as long as I don’t open my mouth in the inappropriate time or place… as long as I hold sway over my swarm, I fell the power of their sheer love of existence, and I feel glad…..I feel grateful.
“Swarm”….say it out loud.
You’ll feel glad.