Heron was back at the Lake tonight,
along with ten thousand mayflies¹
strewn across the surface like petals,
wings still spread as though for flight, and I,
no doubt with several pressed to my bosom
like a medieval lover with her posy.
If God so loves the sparrows²,
and has an inordinate fondness for beetles³,
then each of these, too, must be dust of the stars
in heaven’s eyes, their little lives
as long in the memory of the Divine
as yours or mine⁴ –
I appeal to the heron on behalf of the dead,
but they are inscrutable as ever.

1. A highly conservative estimate. According to internet search results, Lake Erie can produce hatches of up to 87.9 billion mayflies in a single night. Compare to the number of humans; maybe around 117 billion people have ever been born (estimates do not include those little lives that never drew breath), including the more than 8 billion alive today. ↩︎
2. Matthew 10:29 ↩︎
3. A quote attributed to British-Indian scientist J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964), based on the inordinate number of different beetles in creation. ↩︎
4. Apparently, mayflies are older than the dinosaurs. https://lakeerieislandswildlife.com/its-mayfly-season/ ↩︎