Winged Flowers and Pachyderms

What do butterflies and elephants have in common now? They both are on the verge of being endangered species! A fact that hit me in two consecutive days recently.

Imagine a world without butterflies! It will be like a garden without flowers. An art work by a child on a used bottle pleading to save the butterflies from being extinct was really catching. Loss of habitat, apathy from people all contribute to its fast exit from this world. The butterfly sanctuaries that help preserve these tiny creatures cannot do much. Looks like the present generation will see butterflying (butterfly watching) turn into a thing of past in the near future.

The ivory bearer is another specie threatened with extinction. The October edition of this year's 'National Geographic' features a horrendous investigative report on elephant poaching. The picture of small tusks depicts the pinching fact that baby elephants are being slaughtered to make exotic curios. The heinous act, barred by law, persists. It is nature's balance of sustenance that is lost along with these perishing fauna.

If Winter Comes, Can Spring Be Far Behind...

Onset of winter. Entrancing dawn. The golden sun smiles through the dew a washed leaves of the tree that is at my backyard. The same tree that had the intruder bees once (http://soniajohn.blogspot.in/2010/11/bees-attack.html). The branch that housed the bees was ravaged by last year's monsoon. The smell of the fog, the chirp of the birds and the silence of the enclosing foliage refresh my mornings.

Our cozy corner has become cozier. Each of us spent some moments of closeness with nature these mornings. As the season advances the fog envelop thickens and the milk white curtains wait to be parted by the bright star. Like me, the drooping leaves seem lazy to wake up in the cold mornings. Wrapped in woolens, with a cup of hot coffee, on a chair by the window....I unwind with the nostalgia evoking lines of Shelly, 'The trumpet of a prophecy! O wind, If winter comes, can spring be far behind?'