Marcel Karssies, "Mayfly (Ephemera danica, V)," 2004
Mass hatchings, then later a cloud of sparking consciousness of a sort—drives in overdrive, mating in flight, Ophelia-like death scenes for females floating downstream, wings picked off by fish; the males, crawling off to die. Nymph, subimago, imago, then start the dance again. We image-making apes see ourselves in their translations enough to make them metaphor, but if we’ll just take a moment (short or long as one single mayfly’s imago life) to listen, we can hear the very sound our universe makes as it yawns and stretches, expanding into its day, humming its red-shift tune, conjuring mayflies.