A great painter set out to paint a collection of insects,

And wanted to start with a ladybug,

The Coccinellidae, in great detail,

And so he took his brush and dipped

Into the red, with a dot of yellow,

And a dance began,

The speed, the rhythm, and the flight

Upon the canvas, eggshell white.

But as he immersed himself in the dance, 

With the devil in the details,

He found an almost unending degree

Of composition he could see,

And he was intelligent enough to know

How many elements he couldn’t see,

And so, his discernment carried him away.

He had fallen many times

Into pits that did have bottoms,

And he had always only hurt himself when he had finally hit,

But this time he had found a bottomless pit,

And so he plunged harmlessly through the nothingness,

And swarms of Coccinellidae came to him

And declared their endless love to him,

And only then, did he begin 

To understand the complexity of their color 

And the immensity of their design.

-jenn