Cosmophagy: What Caterpillars Know
I.
On Caterpillars
I ask you— picture some lone fruit,
Upon the forest floor,
A fresh and newborn rotting thing—
A solitary fruit, no more.
Should fall this fruit, and fall alone,
With none to hear the rancid tone
Of wet flesh upon wetter ground,
Falls the fruit at all? Makes it any sound?
You sigh, I know, and with good cause,
How many sophists— to some great applause,
Have grinning explained man’s claimed primacy,
And scoffed at all ontology?
You sigh, you do, and with good cause.
But today you shall hear those earnest laws
By which Caterpillars presume to live
And which I’ve yet to hear a lawyer give.
If these arguments I present are fair,
They nonetheless are accepted nowhere
In any human court of law—
So to the forest we may now withdraw!
The fruit falls, and so on and so,
And man says, “I heard no sweet, fruitly tone!”
But the first law which Caterpillars know?
No fruit has ever fall’n alone.
A word on witchcraft, if you would allow:
A man, let’s take, in some small ill-wrought house,
Sits happily under it, when, somehow—
Perhaps by termites or some grim woodlouse,
It falls upon his dozing head,
And takes him swift— and strikes him dead.
A natural thing, do not doubt!
‘Tis safer, mind, inside a house than out,
But houses fall, and ill-wrought ones the more,
Oh, they’ll fall again, and they’ve fall’n before.
We are content with this, we weep, we sigh,
The worst of us gaze up into the sky,
Shouting, “Curséd fate! Curséd, wicked plan,
“What right have you to take this man?”
Believe me, reader, do not absolve fate,
But keep for some other that precious hate,
Which sustains man, keeps him alive,
Whilst other creatures content to survive.
But the instinct is right— what caused the death?
Deprived this man his soul, his breath?
“Ill-wrighting homes”, you, reader, think,
But there we’ve missed some crucial link—
Men ill-wright houses all the time,
Cut corners, cut costs, and even near-rhyme.
And yet, how rare a man to die?
By roof of home, or a turtle on high?
You may know such a man, may know them not.
But certainly you know a house ill-wrought.
And even if some life was lost in there,
You must admit it's rather rare.
Why died the man? Who takes the blame?
The wrightsman? The woodlouse? The dead? The house?
Why died he then? Why dead that day, that place?
The Caterpillar knows the killer, knows their name, their face.
I will not distract you any longer,
I know you are not here for me.
You are here for some minute glimpse
Of Caterpillaren Philosophy.
I shall close the preface with this conceit—
Which academic readers might enjoy,
A guide I fancy quite complete
To become a Caterpillar Envoy.
I spoke to them in the regular way,
With soft hands, soft voice— that is but to say,
I did not upturn any magic log:
Most Caterpillars are eager to dialogue.
My conversationalists, big and small,
Were chosen to understand caterpillars, all,
Moths, Butterflies, the old the young,
The poison, and the pure, the bright, the dun—
That comment in mind but to their habit,
For they share a wit and but one theory,
Common regardless of coloration,
Which most shared gladly, though some were weary
Of us two-legged interlocutors.
(Bipedalism they place with feathered executors)
We spoke casually, and at some length,
With tea, and often with displays of strength,
In which I scared off sparrows and that sort,
Hunting caterpillars for food and sport.
And in this Caterpillaren milieu,
I found some wisdom I will share with you.
I shall stall no longer, tarry no more,
And share with you that which you came here for.
Friends, siblings, I present to thee:
A Caterpillaren Philosophy.
II.
With Caterpillars
The truth is: the fruit did not fall alone.
(Remember, my friend, the start of the poem?)
Oh, perhaps man did not hear that wet sound,
Of rotting fruit upon the rotting ground,
But is the world designed for men?
No doubt, he presumes he is better than
Those countless siblings whose age exceeds him,
Who were here before, and will succeed him.
The whole argument stands on infirm ground!
Did man invent the fruit? The fall’n sound?
Then how demand he share its grace?
Pretense it couldn’t be in some remote place?
The fruit fell before, reader, and I swear it does fall still,
Like ill-wrought homes, the fruit does fall, by some occulted will.
That will which drives you and I, that which we call God,
That will called Cosmophagy, the first law of arthropods.
Here, Caterpillaren Theology,
Explains the thing like this:
The fruit falls for Cosmophagy—
The Caterpillar’s kiss.
A truism, for a Caterpillar!
Whyever falls the fruit?
The Caterpillar needed it!
What more can we dispute?
The fruit falls to the ground,
And it is asked, who hears the sound?
Who hears that rancid sickly sound?
Oh, Caterpillars all around!
They pounce upon this fallen heart,
This isolated, cosmophagous part
Whose twitches they feel as some phantom limb—
They pounce upon this cosmic hypernym,
Which we delude ourselves to be called “fruit”,
And Caterpillars know by proper name:
We is the fruit— We are to blame,
For fall’n fruit, fall’n roof, for fall’n scute,
(If Aeschylus may be our exemplar,
Then we may push our example that far)
Here, Caterpillaren philosophy,
Theogony, Theodicy, Theology,
Autophagy, Homophagy, Complete Egophagy,
The reality of Cosmophagy:
The Caterpillars fill the heart,
And fill their minds with prayer,
And fill their stomachs with the fruit,
And fill their lungs with air.
They devour, they worship their effulgent God,
They twirl like merry dervishes, and merrily glissade,
What ecstasy this is! And whatsoever thinks the tree?
“How wonderful,” he murmurs, “For Caterpillars to be!”
And in this bright and saintly day,
Should any doubt arise?
“Why, no!” the optimist may say,
Though theologians shall surmise:
Unrealized faith is dead,
Undoubted faith quite deader still,
And so if Caterpillars be true believers,
Oh, certain, doubt they will.
And comes a rider on a feathered steed,
Why, our old friend, Cosmophagy!
And flying down on sparrow-back,
She leads an avian counter-attack!
She only ever eats her fill,
And many caterpillars remain still,
And undoubting, continue their great feast—
Not to be undone by some feathered beast!
But now comes the hour of shattered faith,
When first appears that looming wraith—
No! Famine! Begone from this place!
We plead, unbother this fair Caterpillar race!
The cry goes out! The heart is stilled!
The fruit is quiet— The fruit has been killed!
And crying, Caterpillars shout unto the sky,
“Why Cosmophagy! Tell us why!”
But sagacious Caterpillars smile and say,
“Today she takes our food away,
“But such is fair Cosmophagy.
“Then Fruit, now Caterpillar, always we.”
The Caterpillars march from the shattered temple,
And leave its bones behind.
Now, Cosmophagy digs a hole,
And there, the temple is confined!
Oh, faith! Oh, petrified, calcified faith!
What shall become of faith without Caterpillars?
Shall they lay deadened forevermore, underground?
And if none shall be with them, shall they make a sound?
Ah, but the worries of one who doesn't know,
Great Cosmophagy, her sable eyes, her moist breath,
All things may still and fall away,
But Cosmophagy knows not death.
Oh, reader: Cosmophagy’s deep and fav’rite spawn:
Who know the best her name,
They have their petrous bones,
And ecstasize the same!