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Heavens Legs
Painting and Story by Lehan Winifred Ramsay
Heavens Legs are sleeping in the sunshine under a dark rock warm and humid. We all wish we could be there, we all want to be hibernating. If you venture out the kookaburra will get you, and no amount of tickling that fine beak will make him let you go. Squish, and squish, until those sturdy legs are no longer moving in fine sequence. Imagine the feeling of Heavens Legs across your bare stomach as you sit on the floor looking out into the dark night, and that’s how it feels in the kookaburra’s mouth right now. Heavens legs ruffles the feathers on Kookaburra’s cheeks. Snap! goes Kookaburra, and legs fly over the yard.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
My life growing up was dissection and the smell of dirt with caterpillars and eggs and legs and stuff being nurtured to wriggle, slither, and plump. I love heaven’s Legs, but I love these o, so readable stories of so much that is evocative of our Australia. I yearn to see a child seated with a great picture book held on their lap but closer up to view the pictures and reading the stories aloud. Than k you Lehan.
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I have a question, Lehan… Why do you call centipedes ‘Heaven’s Legs’? What could possibly be ‘heavenly’ about them?
🙂
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I don’t really know, asty. I had an image of them falling through the sky. Down from the heavens.
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Sorta raining heavenly legs? How surreal!
🙂
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You see, asty, this is where the observation that the reader (or audience, or viewer) often sees more than the author had described. I have often been gloriously surprised by the things that my students have seen in various pieces of lit, or movies that I have taught; and I had also taken a number of art extras where there, too, I received the same surprising viewpoints. I have learnt an enormous amount from my students.
Anyhow, so far as “heavenly legs” is concerned, I had no trouble at all accepting a couple of things:
* the paradox of the word “heavenly.” The heavens can send you destruction as well as joy and they’ll do it at their whim.
* the ambivalence of the word
* the view that all things are created by some divinity or other, whose abode is the heavens.
* the provocation of the vernacular use of both words: check out them legs. They’re heavenly! Which, to some men -not moi, of course!- it’s an invitation to perv lewdly at some curvaceous celebrity or other.
* the point that the artist might want to make: an artist can make the ugly look heavenly!
And indeed, when I did look at the painting, I felt a heavenly joy with its beauty. The beauty of the whole assembly of subject and colours, brushtrokes, etc. So, yes, I agree with the name Lehan has given her painting. Lerv it, in fact!
‘on ya, Lehan!
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Hey thanks Atomou. That was as good a gaze as any artist could hope for.
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You are absolutely welcome and most thankfully thanked, Lehan!
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Crikey! I’m in a strange mood tonite… sorta bored shitless!
😉
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99 bonk, comes to mind.
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And…a drawing of a worm that’s crawled over a razor-blade.
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The old ‘centipede with a wooden leg’ gag, eh Vectis Lad? The oldies are the best!
Nice painting Lehan, though the story was strangely disturbing, even though I don’t like millipedes or centipedes, and I do like kookaburras…
😉
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Nature isn’t as benign on the east coast of NSW as some other places I’ve lived. I once saw one of those things a foot long when gathering wood for a BBQ at Royal National Park. That’s how long I remember it anyway. After the same little family outing I noticed blood coming through the heel of my shoe and on closer examination found and removed the remaining leeches. Later on noticed that one of the kids (at that time) had a tick at her hairline. All firsts for me.
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I remember a rare excursion up to the north of NSW, Voice, on a very rugged camping trip to the Rocky River, where I caught some huge eels and catfish which went off before we could get round to cooking and eating ’em, where the leeches actually jumped on one out of the trees! (They don’t make good bait for fish, though…)
Now I’m staying in SA, where it’s safe (relatively… as long as you don’t go near the water!)
😉
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I learned to carry salt if going near fresh water, not that I spend that much time in the bush. But after pulling the leeches off I’d always get an unpleasant infectedy kind of sore. Salt works better.
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He’s gone Voix ..
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I heard about salt, Voice… I own a copy of ‘African Queen’. I also believe a lighted cigar also works very well, though I can’t remember which movie I saw that in… Anyway, back to the Simposons…
😉
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Where’d that extra ‘o’ come from?! More bloody ads already! Yeah… I noticed it kinda itched quite a bit… but the green ant-bites were much more painful… and a sandfly bite I once suffered itched terribly and the itch kept coming back about every month; probably with the full moon… but that was in SA… Oh well, let’s see if Granpa Simpson has given up bullfighting yet… Bloody moralistic Lisa!
😉
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Wat-tha?! Futurama?! Now I’ll never know whether or not Lisa forgave Grandpa for killing the bull! (until I find that episode on YouTube, anyway!)
🙂
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Julia my chook loves them. Nice painting Lehan. The ones around here are even longer than you have shown. Really big buggers.
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This is a small painting, I’m thinking of making a big painting of them. If so I’ll make them all longer, Vivienne.
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I think maybe the kookaburras might have made a nicer picture, Lehan… though I do like the colors in this one…
🙂
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Of course Lehan it depends on how old the critters are ! Big mammas or juveniles etc. But you have captured the essence of them I think. Golden orb weaving spiders would make a great painting. Look for them through summer and autumn.
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Yes, I just send mine next door
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I only get the little 3-4 centimetre millipedes in my house Vivienne… and they don’t bother me… but I’m worried about the number of spiders and earwigs I have to squish since moving down to ground level… Spiders ’cause some spider bites can be very nasty and earwigs ’cause… well, how DID they get their name? Maybe they get into your ears and eat your brains out or lay eggs inside it! (Paranoid? Who? Me? Never!)
😉
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You are thinking of Ludwigs, T2
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No… EARwigs! Who’da thunk Bender would learn to play washboard after losing his ability to move…? I used to play washboard at Matilda’s…
🙂
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No Ludwigs. They are the danger. Ask Kevin .
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Ah, most spiders are given stupid names. Earwigs are not spiders as far as I can see. Just very annoying and can get into places and cause bother (underground phone cables, wiring etc). We have a great variety of spiders here and I no longer spray except for small areas in an emergency.
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