A GRASSHOPPER CAME TO MY HOUSE

I stepped outside my room onto the porch
and didn’t close the screen door behind me.
As if on cue, a long-legged/long-tentacled,
very green grasshopper flew into the house.
Had it been waiting there to see for itself
how the inside compares with the outside?

Remember Tithonus from Troy, loved by Eos,
to whom he prayed for immortality, which he got;
but like so many who are utterly distracted
by their own beauty, he forgot to ask also
for eternal youth, so he got older and older
until at last he prayed to Eos and asked for death.

But there are some things even gods can’t do,
so she did the best she could for her beloved
and changed him into a grasshopper, which
like so much in life that has to do with love
is both blessing and curse... My grasshopper,
however curious, is probably not Tithonus.

He seemed to have, however, a need to know
about porcelains I kept on a shelve with books.
Had he been outside looking through the window,
and had he seen the ancient vase from China
with flowers and insects so real that I myself
stop to touch them sometimes when I pass?

He paused for a moment on the shelf and looked
before climbing as grasshoppers can do up and up
to a spot where there was a painted grasshopper
much like himself, and he rested there long enough
to satisfy some need to know, and then went quietly
to the door, no turning back, to disappear into the air.