Ephemeroptera

Photo Credit: Neil Rettig ©John Downer Productions

Mayflies fascinate me. Even their classification, Order Ephemeroptera. It comes from the Greek word ephermoros, literally meaning "living or lasting for one day." and from which we also get ephemeral.

Their greatest tragedy is not that they live for but one day-- well, half an hour to twenty-four hours depending on the species. They actually live a quite a long time, because of the nymph stage of their lifespans: a year, but even two to three years in some species. Compare this to the life-span of some other insects, such as the monarch butterfly (one month larva, 4-52 weeks adult) or even the short-lived dragonfly (two years nymph, 16 weeks adult).

After completing the nymph stage, the mayfly becomes a sub-imago; essentially an undeveloped and sexually premature adult that will undergo one more molting to reach the adult form.

(This might be fanciful, but I don't think it's an accident that the adult form from the mayfly is called "imago", the latin word for "image." The original meaning is "a likeness." And the pre-adult stage: sub-imago, something even less. )

In a huge cloud of insects, mayflies from the sub-imago stage rise out of the water simultaneously, and after maturing, they mate and die simultaneously. I hope to be able to see this wonder one day. Below is one of my favorite (and highly informative) videos of the phenomenon, as well as a poem.

ephemeroptera: a tragedy in four acts
by nich. l.

I. egg

another day.


II. nymph

the truth,
the honest truth is that mayflies are
not as brief as we imagine them to be.

true
true that the adults—called imago, from image—
(not quite anything but a likeness)—

live briefly,
live in one day, famously, notoriously, just one short day but
we forget that

the mayfly egg—
egg, nymph, sub-imago, imago, in that order— hatches
a nymph, which will live

beneath the water,
beneath the surface, eating, growing,
knowing a entire long, long year.

she raps
raps raps the chalkboard with
a pointer, on it a badly drawn

mayfly nymph,
a mayfly, O. Ephermeroptera, ephemeral,
crudely sketched,

not quite anything but a likeness.

III. sub-imago

I met a soldier from a distant war
(some conflict of some consequence)

he propped his ear— upon his hand—
I haven't seen him since—

as if we weren't strange to broken rooms
as if we sat not in dusty stools

he spoke with halting liquid voice
of foreign rivers, azure pools:

"could I but look—and see—
a microcosm— of eternity"

but I thought I heard rise
above his watery lull

a mayfly haze of a
thousand souls


IV. imago

in blood-blue humming waters hold
a million mayflies in a trance
—rise above in a mating dance
—build in air a stately manse

of tumbling bodies, a fragile fleet
of aeneous dreamers, a coeval prayer
of a thousand souls, a doomed affair—
with a digestive system filled with air.

and you, my friend, why were you
dozing by the riverside?
did you see with those lidded eyes
it takes but naught a day to die?

I saw you, content, tiger-like, should you have seen
the females sputter as their partners abandon them
on the river surface, transfixed like gems
not quite genuine, imago, the lining of a hem

you’d know—

you’d hear the ones who speak of life:
it takes but naught a day to die.
had you seen that barren sky:
you’d know it takes but a day, to die.

in such transience we fleeting fly
I envy them who found a way
to steal the strength to sleep, to say:
"I'll die, to live—”