Praisesong for Caterpillars

Gleanings from the documentary The Extraordinary Caterpillar

Every plant puts out a perfume,
oh! I walk in my garden, I breathe
perfumes floating in the air
unsensed by me but detected
by tiny winged specialists.
An insect seeking her host
flies around and pinpoints
the perfume of the plant that loves her.
She has sensors on her feet
to taste what we call smell.

And before she lays her eggs
the specialist senses again with ovipos
to ensure it is her loving host.
A single leaf can be a world of resource
for an egg to grow into a caterpillar.
The Silvery Blue sings for its protection!
Calls out to ants to be its bodyguards,
with a grinding noise we cannot hear.
Ants arrive and the caterpillar
gives them sugar water from its back.

How much goes on
in the smallest of places!
Most of life is smaller than a bee.
Biodiversity, that is to say, relationships,
are how the story fits together.
Without the oak, no ants.
Without the ants, no Silvery Blue.
Without the caterpillar,
no butterfly to pollinate the plants
that eat the sun and make our food.

Caterpillars unlock the wealth.
Four hundred of them feed
a single nest of Chickadees a day.
What regulates the world is not the governments!
Insects are the little ones that run
the food webs of the world.
Any life disrupted
in the magic chain of balance
(a web including humans),
and all in the chain are lost.

If your yard has hardly any living things
do not think it’s normal.
If insects disappear, then so do we.
We must set things right with native plants.
Are your own relationships
sometimes thorny to sustain?
Try adapting and evolving with each other,
as have the insects and the plants,
keeping  everything stable and adjusted,
for say, ten thousand years.

©Susa Silvermarie 2026

Free Limited-release virtual screening until February 24, 2026