2019 Summer hits extreme Heat Index.

Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activity since the mid-20^th century.

Dr Abe V Rotor
Former Professor, UST, DLSU-D Lesson in Advanced Ecology UST and DLSU(D) Graduate Schools. How can an ordinary citizen help in cushioning global warming?
                        Sign of the Times: Smog, acid rain and ozone depletion rolled altogether. 
                                                        Photo by AVR Fairview, QC 2010

Acknowledgment: Time Magazine

Here are scientific evidences released by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
It is a fact that the Earth's climate has been changing throughout history. In the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization.

The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, with most of the warming occurring in the past 35 years with the five warmest years on record taking place since 2010. The warmest year on record was 2016. The IPCC report continues with these alarming developments:

• The oceans are getting warmer. 
• Ice sheets are shrinking, especially Greenland and Antarctic. The Arctic sea ice is declining. 
• Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa (Mount Kilimanjaro),.
• The snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere is melting at an earlier rate. .
• Sea level is rising. Global sea level rose about 8 inches in the last century. The rate in the last two decades, however, is nearly double that of the last century and is accelerating slightly every year.
• Extreme events such as extreme temperature, intense rainfall, and other force majeure 
• The acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution

This global scenario calls for an urgent collective action. It is a plea addressed to governments, organizations, individuals all over the world>  It is a plea beyond message of an Internationally famous broadcaster, natural historian and author, David Attenborough. To wit:

"When we look at the rising ocean temperatures, rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and so on, we know that they are climbing far more steeply than can be accounted for by the natural oscillation of the weather … What people (must) do is to change their behavior and their attitudes … for our upcoming generation we have to do something, and we have to demand for government support

"Right now we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change. If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon".

- David Attenborough, 2018.

Who cares about the broken bridge across the river this summer?

Painting and Verse by Dr. A.V. Rotor

Who cares about the broken bridge over the river in summer?
When the fishing pole bends to the weight of its catch,
When laughter on both side of the bridge is shared by all,
By the houses on one side, the cliff and woods on the other,
And the river flows, flows forever in the idleness of time.

Those who live in these houses have little reference of time.
Morning comes late, evening is early, and the night is long,
The houses have but one eye and ear as they huddle for stories
And news, for there is no fence and the doors are open,
Reminiscent of time past, of a culture lost, of the ancient gene.

Let any catch be his or hers, whether on this part of the broken
Bridge or the other, upstream or at its basin – it is his honor.
A pat on the shoulder is the trophy, a crowning glory to the victor.
While the catch is cooked in a common pot, now it is food for all;
Who cares about the broken bridge across the river in summer?

x x x

Part 1: Sunrise - Memories of Childhood

Sunrise - Memories of Childhood
Abe V Rotor

Harvestime, AVR

"A thing of beauty is a boy forever, " acrylic AVR 2010

Farm Life mural by AVR circa 1994

I remember the Japanese

It was in the last year of the Japanese occupation that memories of World War II became vivid to me. In desperation the enemy killed anyone at sight in exchange for its apparent defeat. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were soon to be erased virtually from the map. I was then four years old. According to psychologists, at this age impressions become lasting memory.

Vigilance was the game. Far ahead of time one should be able to detect the enemy. Fear gripped the neighborhood and the whole town. We hid in a dugout shelter made of solid narra slabs several meters away from our house. Trees and banana plants hid it from view. At one time, I wanted to get fresh air, but my yaya, Basang prevented me to do so. Japanese soldiers were around the place. I heard them chase our geese and chicken. Then I heard my favorite goose, Purao, pleading - then it fell silent. Instinctively I rushed out of our hideout, but Basang pulled me back just on time.

Before this incident Japanese soldiers entered and ransacked our house. Two confronted Basang who was then wearing thick shawl and holding me tight in her arms. In trembling voice, she was saying repeatedly, “Malaria, malaria,” and begging the soldiers to take anything and leave us. One took all our eggs and started eating them raw, pitching the shell at us. One hit me straight on the face and I squirmed. Basang apologized. The soldier shouted. Then the other came back with a stuffed pillow case and signaled the other to leave, but before leaving he gave me a hard look.

It is a face I still see today, cold as steel, lips pursed into a threat, brows drawn down like curtain over flashy eyes. How I reacted on the wicked face, I don't remember. I must have just stared coldly. But deep in me grew a resolved never to be afraid of the Japanese or an aggressor for that matter.

Watching war planes in dogfight.

It was the last year of WWII, 1945. I was going four at that time and the images of planes fighting are still vivid today. Toward the east is the Cordillera range that looked blue in the distance. The view was clear from our house, and hideout. Even if the old San Vicente church partly got across our view, we saw now and then warplanes passing above. It was also the first and only time I saw a double body aircraft flying. There was at least one occasion warplanes fought somewhere above Vigan, and a plane simply bursts in flame and dark smoke. My dad prodded us to go back to our underground hideout.

When I was in high school I had a teacher in literature, Mrs. Socorro Villamor. She was the widow of war hero, Col. Jesus Villamor, one of the greatest Filipino pilots in WWII. After downing several Japanese planes, his own plane was hit and he died in the crash. Camp Villamor was named in his honor. My classmate and I wondered why Mrs. Villamor was often wearing black. At one time she recited for us Flow Gently Sweet Afton. She even sang it, and then came to a halt sobbing. We were all very quiet and let her recover. I could only imagine that up there fighting the Japanese is the great Colonel Villamor, whom my teacher was still mourning ten years after.

I believe that the pain she was then carrying made her the best literature teacher I have ever met. Today I still can recite a dozen selected passages from great American and English poets, and my favorite comes from Flow Gently Sweet Afton. Now and then in my lonely moments I hum its plaintive melody.

The caleza I was riding ran over a boy.

Basang, my auntie yaya and I were going home from Vigan on a caleza, a horse carriage. I was around five or six years old, the age children love to tag along wherever there is to go. It was midday and the cochero chose to take the shorter gravelly road to San Vicente by way of the second dike road that passes Bantay town. Since there was no traffic our cochero nonchalantly took the smoother left lane fronting a cluster of houses near Bantay. Suddenly our caleza tilted on one side as if it had gone over a boulder. To my astonishment I saw a boy around my age curled up under the wheel. The caleza came to a stop and the boy just remained still and quiet, dust covered his body. I thought he was dead. Residents started coming out. I heard shouts, some men angrily confronting the cochero. Bantay is noted for notoriety of certain residents. Instinct must have prodded Basang to take me in her arms and quickly walked away from the maddening crowd. No one ever noticed us I supposed.

Eugene and I nearly drowned in a river.

Boating on Busiing River detail of mural by AVR 2006

There was a friendly man who would come around and dad allowed him to play with us. People were talking he was a strange fellow. We simply did not mind. He was a young man perhaps in his twenties when Eugene and I were kids in the early grades in San Vicente. One day this guy (I forgot his name) took us to Busiing river, a kilometer walk or so from the poblacion. The water was inviting, what would kids like best to do? We swam and frolicked and fished, but then the water was steadily rising so we had to hold on the bamboo poles staked in the water to avoid being swept down by the current. I held on tightly, and I saw Eugene doing the same on a nearby bamboo pole. The guy just continued fishing with his bare hands, and apparently had forgotten us. Just then dad came running and saved us. We heard him castigate the fellow who, we found out that he mentally retarded that he didn’t even realized the extreme danger he put us in.

Paper wasps on the run! Or was it the other way around?

This happened to me, rather what I did, when I was five or six - perhaps younger, because I don’t know why I attack a colony of putakti or alimpipinig (Ilk). It was raw courage called bravado when you put on courage on something without weighing the consequences. It was hatred dominating reason, motivated by revenge.

I was sweeping the yard near a chico tree when I suddenly felt pain above my eye. No one had ever warned me of paper wasps, and I hadn’t been stung before. I retreated, instinctively got a bikal bamboo and attacked their papery nest, but every time I got close to it I got stung. I don’t know how many times I attacked the enemy, each time with more fury, and more stings, until dad saw me. I struggled under his strong arms sobbing. I was lucky, kids my size can’t take many stings. There are cases bee poison can cause the heart to stop.

The Case of the Empty Chicken Eggs

Soon as I was big enough to climb the baqui (brooding nest) hanging under the house and trees. I found out that if I leave as decoy one or two eggs in the basket, the more eggs you gather in the afternoon. Then a new idea came. With a needle, I punctured the egg and sucked the content dry. It tasted good and I made some to substitute the natural eggs for decoy.

Dad, a balikbayan after finishing BS in Commercial Science at De Paul University in Chicago, called us on the table one evening. "First thing tomorrow morning we will find that hen that lays empty eggs.”

It was a family tradition that every Sunday we had tinola - chicken cooked with papaya and pepper (sili) leaves. Dad would point at a cull (the unproductive and least promising member of the flock) and I would set the trap, a baqui with a trap door and some corn for bait. My brother Eugene would slash the neck of the helpless fowl while my sister Veny and I would be holding it. The blood is mixed with glutinous rice (diket), which is cooked ahead of the vegetables.

That evening I could not sleep. What if dad’s choice is one of our pet chicken? We even call our chickens by name. The empty eggs were the cause of it all, so I thought.

In the morning after the mass I told dad my secret. He laughed and laughed. I didn't know why. I laughed, too. I was relieved with a tinge of victorious feeling. Thus the case of the empty eggs was laid to rest. It was my first “successful” experiment.

In the years to come I realized you just can’t fool anybody. And by the way, there are times we ask ourselves, “Who is fooling who?”

Trapping Frogs

It was fun to trap frogs when I was a kid. I would dig holes in the field, around one and one-half feet deep, at harvest time. Here the frogs seek shelter in these holes because frogs need water and a cool place. Insects that fall in to the hole also attract them. Early in the morning I would do my rounds, harvesting the trapped frogs. Frogs are a favorite dish among Ilocanos especially before the age of pesticides. The frog is skinned, its entrails removed, and cooked with tomato, onion and achuete (Bixa orellana) to make the menu deliciously bright yellow orange. ~

Part 2: Sunrise – Memories of Childhood

Dr Abe V Rotor

Countryside scene mural by AVR 2008

Staying put on the farm - is that all you aspire for?
“Buy me a tractor,” I told my dad, “And I will not look for a job. I’ll stay on the farm.”

“Is that all you aspire for?” My father replied.
It was the turning point of my life. I left the farm and went on to pursue my studies, later joining the government service, and after early retirement, becoming a university professor.

Dad is now long gone and only my sister is overseeing the farm. One time while visiting the farm, I asked my eldest son, Marlo, “Do you like to stay here and manage the farm?” He fell silent and I did not utter another word.

I stopped schooling to be with my dad.
I stopped schooling in Manila, so I went home to San Vicente, arriving there on a Sunday at dawn. Instead of directly proceeding to our house, I dropped at the church through the main door. In the distance a man was standing, stooping, his nape showing the marks of old age. I wondered who the man was, and to my surprise I found out he was my dad. I did not know he had grown that old. I said my prayers, and left with a heavy heart.

It was at home that my dad and I met after the mass. He knew it was not yet school vacation, but he was very happy to see me. I did not tell I saw him in the church that morning. Later I told my plan not to continue my studies anymore because I wanted to be with him. He just felt silent.

The following morning he prepared our two bikes. “We are going to Banaoang,” he said in an aura of confidence. Banaoang is a mountain pass through which the mighty Abra River flows, where bamboo from the hills are sold in quantity. We were going to build a flue-curing barn.

The going was easy at first, but the distance and the uphill part were exhausting. Dad gave up before we reached our destination. “Get a rope and pull my bike. Let’s go back home.” He sat down in the shade of a mango tree. When we were rested we slowly pedaled back home. Both of us were silent the rest of the day.

I stayed with my dad until the end of summer working in the tobacco barn we put up. I went back to Manila the following school year to continue my studies. I always pass the highway dad and I once took, and there under an old mango tree, I would be seeing a man resting in its shade, stooping, wrinkles in his nape showing old age.

I shot an arrow into the air and it fell on a newspaper
I was about 4 or 5 years old. Dad was reading Manila Bulletin on a rocking chair. I was playing Robin Hood. Since our sala is very spacious (it has no divisions), anything on the ceiling and walls was a potential target. But something wrong happened. In physics a crooked arrow would not follow a straight line, so it found an unintended mark – the center of a widespread newspaper.The arrow pierced through it and landed on my dad’s forehead, almost between his eyes. He gave me a severe beating with my plaything as he wiped his forehead, blood dripping. I did not cry, I just took the punishment obligingly. Dad must have seen innocence in my eyes. He stopped and gave me a hug.

I shot my finger with an airgun.
I bought an airgun from Ben Florentino, a classmate of mine in high school at the Colegio de la Immaculada Concepcion (CIC Vigan) for fifty pesos, a good amount then, circa 1955. I was loading the pellet, when I dropped the rifle, and on hitting the ground, went off. The bullet pierced through the fleshy tip of my left forefinger. I tried to remove it but to no avail, so I went to the municipal doctor. There was no anesthesia available, and when I could no longer bear the pain, he simply dressed the wound and sent me home.

My wound soon healed, and the lead pellet was to stay with me for the next five years or so, when I finally decided to go for an operation. Had it not been for my playing the violin, I would not have bothered to do so. And it was providential.

Dr. Vicente Versoza, our family doctor in Vigan, performed the operation. A mass of tissues snugly wrapped around the pellet, isolating its poison. He told me I am lucky. There are cases of lead poisoning among war veterans who bore bullets in their bodies. I remember the late President Ferdinand Marcos. Was his ailment precipitated by lead poisoning?

I can “cure” a person who is naan-annungan.
An-annung is an Ilocano term. Spirits cast spell on a person, the old folks say. The victim may suffer of stomachache or headache accompanied by cold sweat, body weakness and feeling of exhaustion.

Well, take this case. It was dusk when a tenant of ours insisted of climbing a betel, Areca catechu to gather its nuts (nga-nga). My dad objected to it, but somehow the young man prevailed.

The stubborn fellow was profusely sweating and was obviously in pain, pressing his stomach against the tree trunk. Dad called for me. I examined my “patient” and assured him he will be all right. And like a passing ill wind, the spell was cast away. Dad and the people around believed I had supernatural power.

There had been a number of cases I “succeeded” in healing the naan-annungan. But I could also induce – unknowingly - the same effect on some one else. That too, my dad and old folks believed. They would seek for my “power” to cast the spell away from - this time – no other than my “victim”. What a paradox!

When I grew older and finished by studies, I began to understand that having an out-of-this-world power is a myth. I read something about Alexander the Great consulting the Oracle at Siwa to find out if indeed he is a god-sent son. “The Pharaoh will bow to you, ” the priestess told him. And it did happen - the pharaoh kissed Alexander’s feet. The great warrior died before he was 33.

Manong Bansiong, the kite maker

Transience of Childhood mural in acrylic by AVR circa 2005

Kites always fascinate me, thanks to Bansiong, nephew of Basang my auntie-yaya. He made the most beautiful, often the biggest kite in town. His name is an institution of sort to us kids. But remote as San Vicente was, we had the best kites and the town was also famous for its furniture and wooden saints.

Manong Bansiong made different kites: sinang-gola, sinang-cayyang, sinang-golondrina (in the likes of a bull, a bird with outstretched wings and legs, and a maiden in colorful, flowing dress, respectively). His kites were known for their strength, stability, beauty, and their height in the sky. In competitions he would always bring home the trophy, so to speak.

Because of Manong Bansiong I became also a kite maker of less caliber. Being an endangered art there is not much variety of kites flying around. The kites I make are not common, and they probably exude the same feeling to kids today as during our time.

I made kites for my children when they were small. Kites fascinated my late first-born son, Pao. It was therapy to his sickly condition. We would sit down together on the grass for hours holding on to the kite, the setting sun and breeze washing our faces.

When my youngest, Leo Carlo, took part in a kite competition at UST, I helped him with the La Golondrina (swallow). It did not win. But in the following year and the year after Leo Carlo became the consistent kite champion of UST, and so he carries on the legend of Manong Bansiong.

Draining a fishpond with centrifugal pump
We were perhaps the first in town to own a centrifugal pump, a three-horsepower Briggs and Stratton with a two-inch-diameter pipe. Which means, we can now irrigate whole fields, or drain fishponds.

One summer when the water was low, dad decided to use the pump in our one-hectare fishpond by the estuary in Nagtupacan, a coastal village of San Vicente. He put me in charge of the operation. I was a high school sophomore then. I stayed with the pump in the shade of nearby spiny candaroma (aroma) trees, sleeping under the stars at night. I learned that high tide followed by low tide occurs during the day, and repeated at night. That means the pump must overcome high tide that pushes water from under the fishpond and through the base of its dikes.

What we thought to be an easy operation probed to be an unending battle. Finally we gave up. We lost, but not entirely for we were able to harvest some fish from a drained area. Above all, I learned a lesson, which I was to use in my teaching in the university. On the part of dad, he told me, “Machines are no match to the enormous power of nature.” A few years after, the machine broke down, dad told in his letter. I was then in Manila earning a college degree. That night I imagined the spiny candaroma and the stars and the tides coming in and out. ~

Fishing upstream, AVR

The Fearful Crocodile - a Photo Study

Abe V Rotor
This is one of the biggest crocodiles ever caught, now in a zoo near Manila, where visitors can view this fearful creature. The crocodile is much older than the dinosaur. It survived the great cataclysmic asteroid impact that killed more than half of living organisms on earth at the end of the Mesozoic Period. Among the victims were the dinosaurs which dominated the earth for millions of years. It is the biggest reptile today, but it is facing extinction as its natural habitat, the swamp, is fast shrinking through man's intrusion and economic activities.


An aging crocodile. Crocodiles are known to live for fifty years, and even more in undisturbed places.

A juvenile crocodile. Crocodile farms produce meat and skin for leather and fashion, and serve as sanctuary. One of the biggest crocodile farms in the world is in Palawan. The Philippines holds the world's record of the biggest living crocodile. It is kept in a special den in Mindanao.

Bony face of a crocodile. It shows semblance with that of the dinosaur although they are not directly related. Acknowledgment: Avilon Zoo, Rizal

Dare the crocodile - any animal within its reach its victim,
yet it is nature's keeper of the wild and tool of evolution,
eliminating the unfit, keeping the strong through their genes
that only those that survive deserve a place on earth.

Dare the crocodile - he is today man's victim in the wild,
and the wild is no more; its niche, its bastion is the zoo,
farms copied from its wildlife den. Then in the museum
where someday it becomes like the dinosaur a fossil. ~

Are you a Morning or a Night Person?

Abe V Rotor and Melly C Tenorio
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid DZRB 738 KHzAM
8 to 9 Evening Class, Monday to Friday
Living with Nature - School on Blog

The watchful owl, symbol of journalism

Our clocks have individual variations. For example, there are people who are more active in the afternoon and evening, and there are those who are opposite – they are more active in the morning.

Chances are, you already know instinctively whether you are a morning person (sometimes known as a “lark”) or a night person ( sometimes called an “owl”).

If you aren’t sure which you are, here are some questions to ask yourself:
1. Do you wake up early and go to bed early?
2. Do you generally rise from your bed wide eyed and raring to go?
3. Do you feel that you do your best work early on the day?
4. Do you find yourself waking up just before you alarm is scheduled to go off?

If you answered yes to these questions, then you are most likely a morning person.

1. Do you wake up late and go to bed late?
2. Do you wake up sleepy eyed and sluggish?
3. Do you generally suffer through the early morning hours and get your surge of energy and creativeness later in the day?
4. Do you find it easy to sleep through the buzz or ring of an alarm clock?

If you answered yes to these questions, then you are most likely a night person.

Difference between Night and Day People

1. Morning People tend to have more introverted personalities, while Night People tend to be more extroverted. This is particularly true the age of forty.

2. Morning People tend to have less flexible circadian rhythms, which means they benefit more, both physically and mentally, from following structured daily routine.

3. Morning People tend to sleep more soundly than Night People and wake up feeling more refreshed.

4. Women are more likely to be Morning People than men.

Your Sleep Cycle: A Quiz

1. Do you fall asleep easily during the day while reading, watching TV, or doing other sedentary activities?
2. Do you find that you are irritable and short-tempered for no particular reason during the day?
3. Do you need an alarm clock to awaken you in the morning?
4. Do you wake up feeling sluggish and sleepy?
5. Do you need a nap to keep you alert through the afternoon and evening?
6. Do you regularly “sleep in” an hour or more on weekends?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may not be getting enough sleep to meet your individual sleep cycle needs.

1. Do you stay awake in bed long after the lights are out, waiting for sleep to come?
2. Do you awaken in the morning before your alarm clock goes off?
3. Do you spend the last hour or two in bed alternating between sleep and wakefulness?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be trying to get some sleep than your individual sleep cycle demands.

1. Do you smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol or a caffeinated beverage late in the afternoon or evening?
2. Do you fall asleep with the radio, TV, or lights on?
3. Do you take sleeping pills?
4. Do you sleep in a very cold or very hot room?
5. Can outside noises (such as airplanes or street traffic) be heard in your bedroom at night?
6. Are you depressed, anxious, or worried?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be damaging your natural sleep cycle and not be getting the quality of sleep you need to feel and perform at your best,

Tips for Improving your Sleep Cycle

Paying attention to your sleep cycle can improve your physical and mental health. Here is a summary of tips for ensuring that your nighttime rhythms add to your daytime health and happiness.

1. Assess your sleep needs and determine the optimum number of hours you need to sleep.
2. Keep regular sleep hours, even on weekends.
3. If you stay up late, be sure, get up regular time the next morning.
4. Avoid alcohol, cigarettes, and caffeine, especially after 6:00 p.m
5. Do not use sleeping pills
6. Use naps judiciously. If you nap, do so regularly.
7. Never nap if you have trouble sleeping tight.
8. Avoid falling asleep with the light on radio on.

Don't worry, an owl can be as happy as a lark, and a lark as vigilant as an owl. Just follow your inner rhythm.
x x x

Environment and Biology: Would man dare to kill a firefly?

Catching fireflies. Amadeo, Cavite

Closeup of the firefly world-newsupdate.blogspot.com/2009/03/firefly...

Entomology team from UST Graduate School headed by the author.

Abe V Rotor

Man is the insect buster; self proclaimed, strong and bold;

He conquers his greatest enemy, wasting no time.

He has read enough books, and turned away from the old.

He’s Pied Piper now in new adventure in his prime.

To the rescue, he rid the world of aliens and all their kin;

"I am Gulliver," he said to the imagined Lilliputians,

With gloves and boots, armed with tools of the modern kind,

He saw himself riding to the West against the Indians.

Make way for this nemesis, the bugs run for your lives;

They dropped dead, crushed, unbearable was the pain.

Their shelter stormed, their nests torn, so with their hives.

It’s reminiscent of Pompeii where the ruins reign.

The air is stilled, there’s no more music in the night;

The pond is clear, but where have the fishes gone?

Plants still bloom, but their flowers are no longer bright.

Where are the bees and butterflies that meet the sun?

Frogs no longer croak, silent are the fields and the trees;

Where’s the cicada shrilling with joy, the cricket at night?

The melodious songs and calls of birds that never cease.

The mayfly’s visit, or the moth’s over a candlelight?

Suddenly the world became still. Didn't Rachel Carson

Tell in Silent Spring the birds didn't arrive one spring?

Or in biblical times, didn't a cloud of death over a zone

Killed creatures one by one, the survivors migrating?

Where have all the sweetest sugar and flowing silk gone?

Their makers, the busy bee and the the naive worms?

They too, have been stilled forever by the same poison

That killed the evil ones and their ugly forms.

Didn't Alexander the Great die on the Euphrates

Of malaria? Or the Pharaoh Menes of bee venom?

Thousands died building the Panama Canal and Suez,

And more death blamed to insects still unknown.

Who would like the fly around? But without it the dead

Would litter the ground, more so without the Scarabid.

Who would eat remnants of an enemy, diseases they spread?

For certain man doesn't like to die first? God forbid.

His joy to conquer lies in his genes, even against his kind,

Much less the lowly crawlers, for revenge or just game;

Yes, man is insect buster, self righteous, self-proclaimed -

But would he dare to kill a firefly just the same? ~

Part 1: Growing Up with Nature and Art

Drawings, paintings and murals by Leo Carlo R Rotor

Part 2: Growing Up with Nature and Art

Drawings, paintings and murals by Anna Christina R Rotor.