Up, down, up, down, updown.
The weird choreography of gnats in the late winter sunlight, rising in unison from the incense cedar and bouncing in the chilly, bright air. A constellation of illuminated bioplasm. Is it a communal mating ritual? An invitation to passing birds to come, feast? A celebration of approaching seasonal change? All of that? None?
Faster and faster, the frenzied dance brings their tiny grey bodies together, until they are a single whirling orb of gossamer fluff.
Bang!
They resettle, simultaneously, into the cedar. The sun shines, the breeze stirs.
And then again, up, down, up, down.
Image by NASA via flickr.com/commons
“Quintuplet Cluster”