In the green cathedral of my garden, the hornworms crawl like gentle ghosts over tomato leaves, their soft bodies glistening under the sun, unaware of the tiny betrayal that waits. A wasp, black and gold, hums above them…… a priest and executioner at once. She hovers, patient and precise, a needle of intent in her abdomen.
And then it happens: a quiet puncture, imperceptible, a sting that carries not venom but life. Inside the hornworm, her children awaken, tiny, silent, relentless. They grow in secret, feeding on the worm’s flesh, a slow, merciless revolution. By the time the worm realizes, it is too late…..its body is a temple of another’s design.
I watch this in my garden and think of the world outside, how life folds in on itself, how creation and destruction are the same hand, warm and cruel, offering both sustenance and oblivion. Even the smallest leaf trembles with this truth: that to live is to host a stranger, that love and violence are stitched together in the same green thread.