Waterbugs

The ditches are full of water from the heavy rains and do not drain much even when the rains stop. Across the surface, waterbugs skim and glide in a straight line that I could not draw. They remind me, though, of the autumn crickets in Chinese and Japanese poetry, unaware that winter is coming. The waterbugs don’t know that eventually the water in the ditches will drain. But, then, we don’t pay much attention to our own winter, to our own little ditches draining, do we? Waterbug, what was your face like before your parents were born? Not quite a koan, but at the moment it seems sufficient.