on new years day, with sensory lines and memory lines...

"we choose our favorite [insects] according to the way they look, and according to the mood they offer. a glow-worm in the grass on a late summer evening can - as a mildly, magically shining lantern greeting us from a tuft - in a paradoxical way, provide a mood for an entire twilight landscape. through our senses the glow-worm gives us a wide range for our soul. in a similar way, a ladybug concentrates, in its jewelry-like daintiness, the mood of a sunny summer meadow in the highlight of beauty which she herself re-creates with her wing cases. there is something indescribable in such a concentrated experience. the ladybug can represent all the senses' summers, with sensory lines and memory lines coming together in an intense now, all in one spot. such a distinctively emphasized experience of one spot, of one now and one life, can only be conveyed by insects, because they are small enough to make us focus our vision on that particular point: the up-close point in the living now. at the same time we find there is a different system of coordinates here than the one that deals with positions - a coordinate system of the senses, of experience and poetry."

harry martinson, insects - an adventure of the mind, from views from a tuft of grass