Lady Bugs

• Tasma Rush-harvey, Grade 11
• Poetry
• 2018

There is a tree in the garden.
That tree blooms every year.
The blooming tree is as beautiful as an amethyst.
The flowers are deep purple and smell like orchids.
I’m the first few day the lady bugs dot the flowers, like stars against a purple sky.

They come by the hundreds as they coat the tree.
If you look at it you wont know whats going on.
All of the moving dots, wiggling around and flying through the still air.
When the cold breeze begins to blow at the beginning of Autumn, the lady bugs begin to leave.

When the coat takes off it looks like a cloud.
A cloud full of red, orange and yellow.
The flowers fall off the tree and it is left bare.
Forced to endure another cold winter.
New shoots begin to form on the tree as new leaves develop in the middle of spring.
When the tree has leaves again it looks like an emerald.
I look down at the windowsill and there sits a small red bug.