Filter of broad Humulus leaves hazes the shade greenish.
Leaves well addled with caterpillar jaw-work are auspicious of good hop crop.
In the foreground a freshly fledged Polygonia interrogationis, opening questions: it has not yet opened its wings, not even once; how many times in its life will it open its wings?
(Zoom in to notice its namesake silvered punctuation-mark, imperfectly printed.)
In the background a larval sibling, having stitched its foot to the eave, assumes the asana and begins the breathing exercises that will bring it a hard chrysalid shell; this container (you can see one there, the empty husk out of which the adult has crawled and upon which it still hangs, resting) will allow for total self-liquidation.
Liquid will reorganize itself over the course of a week or two and come out butterfly.
Schmetterling is built on an etymological energy of "smashing": the butterfly is like a fluttering piece of debris. English has an old word for this, "flinder"; this word too has carried butterfly senses (hence the archaic "flinder-mouse" for bat, cognate with German Fledermaus). Some scholars suggest "butterfly" to be a popular-etymology corruption of the unattested "batterfly".
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